Walking the Wire
by shadow djinni
Summary: Sequel to St Erasmus' Fire After the narrow escape from Central Command, Team Voltron has a lot to cope with: completing their mission, the implications of Zarkon's status as a former Paladin, and the shadowy Galra group making outreach. Now a traitor himself, Sendak's only choice is to throw his weight behind Voltron. But how far can he trust them? How far can they trust him?
1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** Well, I'm over a month later than I said I would be, so I owe you all an apology. Real life caught up to me, classes and all, and I'm a fair bit behind my deadlines for this fic. That said, the update schedule on this one is going to be longer than St. Erasmus' Fire-two to three weeks instead of every week.

Oh! Fair warning to any new folks: In case you missed the summary, this is the second part of a Sendak redemption au splitting off at Crystal Venom (S1E9). Part one is entitle St. Erasmus' Fire, and can be found on my profile, the next fic down.

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Pidge

Pidge felt it the second Green's paws began to lift from the floor. The Lion shot a pulse of anxiety at her, and Pidge squeezed the controls and twisted them _just_ so. Green sank her claws into the hanger floor, gouging at it, fighting to stay anchored. The forces outside her open bay doors were too much. The claws ripped free. Pidge squeezed the controls tighter and shut her eyes.

Panic leapt across the Voltron mindlink like static electricity, bouncing from Paladin to Paladin and coming back stronger each time till it shook her to the bone. Someone was screaming over the comms. Maybe it was her. It was too much. It was all too much. The swirling, chaotic energy in the corrupted wormhole spun Green like a leaf in a tornado and flung her sideways.

And then, suddenly, the resistance was gone. The relentless pull was gone. She opened her eyes. The viewscreen blurred blue-green-yellow-grey, too fast to focus on. She slammed her eyes shut again and winced as bile burned the back of her throat.

Something _smashed_ into Green's back. The cockpit jerked violently. Pidge gripped the controls harder, fighting to stay in her chair. A second impact made her shriek, and then a third-she could feel Green tumbling out of control. The fourth nearly did throw her from her chair into the dash. She braced her feet for the fifth, smacked her head on her knees when the sixth impact _slammed_ her forward.

The seventh was more Green's side than her back, and she came to a rolling, grinding halt. Weightlessness returned a second or two later. Pidge picked herself up and peered around. The viewscreen was off. The cabin lights were off, save for a low green glow that barely illuminated the dimness.

"...What's the matter, girl?" she asked, reaching up to fiddle with the controls in case it helped. No response. Not even a flicker of light. She sighed. "Okay. Rest a bit. I'll see what I can do."

A little more fiddling brought reserve power online, and she pulled up the viewscreens immediately. Long strands of metal floated past amid clouds of green and yellow gases. All of it had been worked-the metal, that is-in some fashion, discarded parts of ship hulls and satellites and god knows _what_ else hovering weightless in the void.

"Looks like there's no gravity here," she said, half to herself and half to the Lion. "It's like a...trash nebula of some kind." She'd be willing to bet it was all Galra junk, too. They were _exactly_ the kind of species to just leave their garbage lying around wherever.

She crossed her legs and settled a little more comfortably in her seat. "Okay, Pidge, stay calm. You know what they say, 'when you get lost in space, the best thing to do is stay put and wait for people to find you.'" It was too quiet in Green without the familiar hum of her engines. She set her chin in her hand. "...This'll be nice. I'll have some me time."

Too. Quiet. She tapped her fingers against the side of her helmet.

"...No one to annoy me," she said softly.

And then something shot directly past her, red and grey and spinning out of control, tumbling deeper into the junk nebula. Pidge scrambled upright and maneuvered through the control menus until she got to the viewscreen recordings, paused it in the middle of the flyby. And blanched. That was _unmistakably_ a Galra fighter pod in distress-not damaged, but spinning wildly out of control. It took her a second or two to place it.

The fighter that had helped them out at Zarkon's central command. That _had_ to be it. None of the others had been close enough to enter the wormhole with them. She felt bad for the pilot-whoever they were, they had to be terrified. And probably hurt, if their pod crashed the same way Green had. Those fighters were _way_ less durable than the Lions. She could go help them. She _had_ to go help them if they were the same person who'd helped fend off the AI-controlled fighters at Central Command. It was only right. What had Allura said about the Paladin Code? Something about helping all those in need.

Well, if that fighter wrecked as hard as Green did, the pilot was going to need help. Pidge let herself out of the cockpit and made her way out into the junk nebula.

Pidge had had the bare minimum zero-G training back at the Garrison; class-wise she had at _least_ three more years before her cohort went anywhere near actual space, but they'd taught everyone in the space program the technique. She bounced carefully off every available surface, little hops that took her a yard or so at a time to keep from pushing off too high or too long and overshooting. At least the Paladin armor had jetpacks-she could use the thrusters if she ever got too far from a solid surface to control her momentum. She snagged hold of a spar-probably the tip of an antenna or something-and peered around.

Nothing. _Nothing_. It couldn't have gone _that_ far, could it? What if it had? How was she going to find it if it had gone out of her range? How was she gonna get the pilot back to Green if they were hurt?

 _There_. The fighter had come to rest against a long metal panel a ring over. It didn't _look_ damaged-the pilot must have gotten it under control before they could wreck. That was good. She could take a little more time getting over to the pod if it wasn't about to blow up or catch fire or something.

And then, out of the corner of her eye, she spotted something glowing in the shadow of a curved piece of metal. Two somethings. Cyan, eye-shaped, eye-distance apart. A second pair lit up. A third. Four. Five. She let go of the spar to grab for her bayard.

"Who's there?" she demanded.

More lights-six, ten, a dozen, too many to count. One of the nearer sets grew larger and larger, approaching the opening. Then the eyes' owner emerged into the light, and Pidge couldn't help laughing with relief.

The 'eyes' were bioluminescent spots on the face of something that looked like a large, fuzzy, pink grub or caterpillar. Nothing harmful. It floated out towards her, the others in the shadow rafting out to follow the first. Not all of them were pink-some were pastel shades of blue, or green, or yellow. She lowered her bayard as the nearest ones approached.

"Aww, hey little guys," she cooed. "You guys are so _cute_! Too cute to be found in a dump like this." The creatures-trash caterpillars? Junk grubs?-swarmed around her, and she could see more of them emerging from the rest of the structure. "Are you guys the only ones living here? I hope my rough landing didn't disturb your day. I'll only be here for a little while, I'm just trying to get back to my friends. We were separated during a wormhole jump."

A quintet of the trasherpillars grouped up, bumping into each other in their eagerness to be closer to each other.

"Yeah! Friends!" Pidge agreed. "I think that's one of mine over there-" she pointed to the fighter pod- "do you think you could help me find a way over?"

The trasherpillars swarmed and looped around her. She could faintly hear them squeaking and chattering through her helmet. Well, that meant there was enough of an atmosphere to carry soundwaves and support life, but she wasn't going to risk removing her helmet until she knew its composition. If the green banding in the gas clouds said anything, there was _probably_ oxygen in the mixture, but for all she knew the ratio of oxygen to other gases would be too low to support her. And with the way things had been going lately, it was probably full of sulfuric acid or some toxic gas that would kill her the second she took her helmet off. Yeah, she wasn't going to risk it.

The pink trasherpillar that had approached her first did a loop around her body and jetted off along the metal ring. Several others did the same, swooping off to follow the green one, and Pidge took the hint and bounded after them. They led her down along the ring, well past Green's hiding place but closer to the fighter pod, until-finally-they came to a spot where the rings came close enough that Pidge could jump the gap. The trasherpillars looped and bobbed around her like a pack of small, eager dogs when she figured out the jump and joined them on the other side.

Pidge could feel her tension rising as she approached the fighter. She'd called the pilot a friend, but...well, she didn't really _know_ , did she? They'd helped her and the other Paladins out at Central Command, but she hadn't so much as heard their voice over the comms, much less seen their face. The person in the fighter could be anyone. Hell, they might even be a spy or an assassin sent by Zarkon to gain Team Voltron's trust and then destroy them from the inside. Not that it was particularly likely-Zarkon's preferred tactic seemed to be a frontal assault rather than anything sneakier. Why be sneaky when you had the biggest military in the universe and could pound your enemies into dust faster than you could say 'Galra Empire'?

Her bracer beeped.

Pidge glanced down at it. A light blinked back up at her-some kind of notification from the computer integrated in her suit. It might be important. And even if it wasn't, it couldn't hurt to check. She flipped open the holo-screen.

 _Proximity Alarm_ , it said, and then a string of numbers she half-recognized. A code. She'd seen it before, some time recently. Where? Coran's datapad. Not during the malfunctions, much more recently than that-

-The tracker in the cuffs. Sendak.

"Mother _fucker_ ," Pidge declared.

The fighter pod had stayed closed, but unless Pidge's eyes were playing tricks on her, the red lights were dimmer than before. Much dimmer. Hardly glowing at all, actually, when earlier they'd been bright enough to see all the way back at Green. That couldn't be a good sign. She bounded closer, closer, right up onto the ship's prow.

That close, she could actually see through the thick red glass. The pod looked like it had powered down, and its lone occupant slumped over the controls. She almost couldn't tell it was Sendak-a helmet hid his distinctive ears, and from this angle he looked _much_ smaller-but she could see the way the left sleeve hung empty and the bulges at his wrist and around his thigh where the cuffs were still attached. It was him, alright. And he wasn't moving. His right hand, the only visible part of his body, splayed limply across the dash.

"You'd better not be dead," she grumbled. Then she began searching for the door to the pod. There _had_ to be a way in, and she was going to find it.

As it turned out, the door _was_ the glass. Pidge located a seal at the back, where the glass met the steel of the pod, and tracked it all the way to the front where she found a nearly-invisible hinge. She bounded back across the glass and searched for a latch, a button, anything-and found it, again, concealed. The dark marks across the button that probably would light up if the pod was on were the only giveaway. She pressed the button and moved back out of the way.

The seal on the hatch hissed, beginning to depressurize, but didn't open. She tugged on it, grunting with effort.

And then it did, too fast, and would have flung her off if something hadn't grabbed the back of her armor and slammed her down hard against the pod. Pidge shrieked, grabbing her bayard and thrusting it in front of her. The tip came to rest against something, and she prepared to squeeze the trigger and shock it. And found herself staring Sendak directly in the face.

The Galra stared back, lone eye wide and wild, his lips peeled back from his teeth in a snarl. He seemed to recognize her in the same instant and let go, pushing off slightly so her bayard was no longer touching him and reached up. He grabbed the trailing sleeve, squeezing it shut. Keeping his suit pressurized, probably. Smart.

"What the _fuck_?" Pidge demanded, pushing herself upright.

Sendak scowled and reached up, tapping the side of his helmet.

"Oh, yeah," Pidge said, feeling lame. "No comms. Right." She pushed off the fighter and turned to head back to Green, then waved him after her. "Come on."

Sendak's eye narrowed further, and he pushed off the pod-in the wrong direction. Away from her. He kept his grip on his sleeve, but the hunch of his shoulders shifted to something more...defensive? Yeah, defensive, and he'd adjusted his stance to brace against the metal with his feet. Pidge crossed her arms.

"I said, come _on_ ," she snapped. "You don't want to stay out here by yourself, do you?"

Sendak backed further away, and Pidge ran out of patience and bounded toward him. The Galra launched himself aside, scrambling and slipping on the metal underfoot. His boots skidded out from under him, and he dropped onto the metal surface, landing hard on his left side and rebounding. She heard _something_ -his voice, unintelligible through their helmets-before he bounced off the steel, wrapping his arm around his abdomen.

He left a blue streak behind on the metal.

"...Shit," Pidge muttered.

She launched herself after him, grabbing Sendak by the shoulder and turning him over-much easier in a microgravity environment and without resistance on his part. He looked worse up close, now that she wasn't too startled to take note. His eye was squeezed, jaw clenched like he intended to grind his teeth to powder. Blood oozed from what looked like puncture wounds on his lower lip and several small gashes on his cheek. She ignored it, turning him further to get a look at his helmet. _There_. On the side, a pad with writing beside it. Her helmet's screen translated it almost instantly- _communications_.

"Bingo," she said, and pushed the button.

The comms filled instantly with agonized gasping, and Pidge's stomach did a slow roll. She'd _never_ heard someone make a sound like that before, that high, whimpering inhale and almost choked exhale. Not even _Lance_ had make sounds like that after the bomb went off. Sendak flinched under her hand, and she let go immediately. She heard him take a deep, shuddering breath, and then he flipped himself upright and pulled away, staring at her intently. _God_ , was his face hard to read without the ears.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

Sendak glowered back. _"Flesh wounds, nothing more,"_ he growled.

Pidge eyed him suspiciously. "That didn't _sound_ like 'flesh wounds'."

 _"Landing directly on injuries hurts."_

"You bled on the ground."

 _"It'll stop soon."_ He hadn't pulled his arm away from his abdomen, and the black suit would make it impossible to tell anyway, but Pidge had trouble believing him.

Well, if Sendak wanted to be a tough guy, that was _his_ problem. Pidge turned back towards the Green Lion. "Fine, whatever," Pidge said. "I'm going back to Green. If you want to stay out here, that's your deal."

She made it five leaps before the Galra landed beside her, just out of arm's' reach but keeping pace, and she ducked her head to hide her grin. He might have been an asshole, but Sendak wasn't stupid. That was _just_ what Pidge had been counting on.

 _"The others,"_ Sendak said abruptly.

Pidge jumped, startled. "Huh?"

 _"The rest of the Paladins, and the Castle of Lions,"_ he clarified. _"Where are they?"_

"I don't know," Pidge said. "They all went in different directions when the wormhole corrupted."

Sendak hummed. _"And you haven't tried to locate them?"_

"I'm not letting you interrogate me again!" Pidge snapped.

 _"I am_ not _-"_ Sendak cut himself off. She glanced back at him, saw him shake his head out of the corner of her eye. _"...There was no intent to interrogate,"_ he said.

Pidge sighed. There was no point to withholding information-they were about to come back in sight of Green anyway. "The crash knocked the Green Lion out of commission," she said. "Until the main power comes back online, I can't use the navs or try to contact the Castle." She paused and eyed him again. "Is that what happened with your fighter?"

Sendak snorted. _"I shut it down myself,"_ he replied.

"What? Why the _hell_ would you do _that_?" Pidge yelped.

 _"There's a distress beacon in the pod programmed to activate when it enters specific sectors of known space across the empire. Since I've been declared a traitor, I would prefer not to have a signal, particularly a distress beacon, pointing to my location."_

"So you know where we are?"

 _"The Artos nebula wrecking grounds."_ Sendak leapt past her, landing on a crumpled frill of steel. _"This cluster eats ships. Hence the distress beacon. It's coded directly into the pod, so the only way to turn it off was to shut it down."_

"...You don't sound too concerned," Pidge said. She caught up and passed him easily-then stopped dead and turned around. "Wait, you _actually_ betrayed the empire? You mean you _weren't_ just waiting for an opportunity to betray _us_?"

 _"I_ did _say they would kill me if I went back,"_ Sendak said, neatly dodging her question and her reach as he bounded past her. He perched lightly on a twisted spar of metal, watching her approach. The hairs on the back of her neck stood straight up.

"...Didn't you say you were going to kill me the next time I got too close to you?" she said, coming to a halt. They studied each other for a minute, the silence stretching like a spring about to snap.

Sendak looked away, breaking the tension. _"Survival comes before vengeance,"_ he muttered.

"...Oh," Pidge said. That made a surprising amount of sense. Why hadn't she thought of that? She could feel her cheeks heating with embarrassment and took off again along the ring to hide it.

They rounded the corner of the ruined hull just in time to watch Green raise her head and the yellow lights in her eyes come back on.

"Hey, you're working again! Welcome back!" Pidge shouted. She launched herself across the void immediately, activating her jetpack when her jump wasn't enough to reach the Lion. The trasherpillars swarmed around her in wide, exuberant loops.

Green's massive head tilted towards Pidge, and she had the feeling that those glowing eyes regarded her fondly. The Lion inclined her head downward, like she was going to swallow Pidge whole, and she launched herself up into Green's mouth, heading for the cockpit. If Green was back online, she could use the comms, the nav, find the others before they had to find her. She settled into her chair, opening dialogues and looking through them for any sign of the Castle or the other Lions.

Nothing. They had to be out of range.

She was so absorbed in the search that she didn't even notice Sendak had entered the Lion until something thudded behind her. She turned around in the chair, and there he was, leaning heavily against the wall. The thud had been his helmet, which he'd apparently dropped. He pushed himself back upright when he noticed her gaze and stared at her intently. Pidge stared back.

She'd never felt this tense before, not even her first day infiltrating the Garrison.

"Nothing?" he asked.

Pidge shook her head. "So what do we do now?"

"Why are you asking _me_?" Sendak huffed, flattening his ears.

"I dunno," Pidge snapped. "Maybe because you know where we are? Maybe because you've spent your whole _life_ out here? Maybe it's because you're an _alien commander_ from an _intergalactic empire_ and I've been going to a school run by a species that hasn't even left our _solar system_ for _one_ _year_?"

Sendak's head tilted, his expression becoming thoughtful. "You make a good point," he said slowly. "But this situation-stranded in enemy territory, with all allies totally out of reach-isn't what you'd call _common_." His brows furrowed. "You need a way to reach your team without alerting this sector's commander or any of the patrolling subcommanders to your presence."

"Hm…" Pidge drummed her fingers on her armrest. "What we need is a way to amplify Green's signal so we can get in touch with them...or let _them_ get in touch with _us_ …"

Sendak shrugged. "Don't ask me. I know nothing about technology."

" _How_. You _fly spaceships_ , how do you not know how to repair them or amplify signals or anything?!"

"Because I don't work on the tech. My job is to show up with the big gun, destroy things, and kill people. I can do very _minor_ maintenance work on some of the ships I know how to fly, and that's all." Sendak went to cross his arms, paused, and set his hand on his hip instead. "If you wanted a tech specialist, you should have killed me instead of Haxus."

Pidge glared at him. "Well it's too late to change that now." She stood up and walked past him, towards the door. "I'm headed back out to see if there's anything in the junk I can use. You can come if you want, or you can stay in Green if you're too _chicken_."

Sendak's eyes narrowed. "... _Chicken_? What does that _mean_?"

"Cowardly," Pidge said smugly.

Sendak snarled. "Call me a coward again and I'll rip your arm off and beat you with it."

Pidge turned around, crossed her arms, and met Sendak's stare. Sendak stared back, ears flat to his skull. His upper lip curled, exposing blue-black gums and long, white fangs. Pidge bared her teeth in response. It felt inadequate and almost stupid, but, to her surprise, Sendak hunched his shoulders and looked away.

"...Fine," he grumbled. "But I will need to do something about this sleeve before I can leave the ship."

"Could you tie it off?" she asked.

"If I had two hands," Sendak said, "but that would also negate the problem."

Pidge hesitated. "...I could tie it off for you."

Sendak's ears flattened. "Leave the bayard in the pilot's chair and I'll consider it."

Pidge sighed, walked back to her chair, and put her bayard down on the seat. She looked back over her shoulder at Sendak, who flicked his ears up-a signal to approach, she guessed. She tied the sleeve off about halfway up, as high as she could reach. Sendak stepped back out of range as soon as she finished, eyeing her warily. Good. She deliberately made eye contact with him when she retrieved her bayard, relishing the way his ears flattened and he avoided her gaze.

She made sure Sendak exited Green before she did, waiting in the Lion's mouth until he leapt out past her and into the void. Gravity seemed to work more on him than it did on her-probably because he was heavier, so stronger forces worked on him than on her. Unfortunately, it also meant he got more oomph when he pushed off something, making his leaps longer than hers and propelling him away more quickly. Pidge growled and launched herself after him, activating her jetpack to propel her further-and her foot caught on a cable, smashing her to the ground in a pile of junk. The scraps and shards of metal around her floated up and away, leaving her draped over a wide metal rim-an iron alloy by the way it had rusted. The trasherpillars swarmed around her, chirping and squeaking. One of the green ones floated forward to hover over her shoulder.

"No, it's not my friends," she said, giving the little alien the side-eye. "It's just an old, rusty satellite." It took her a few ticks for that last word to sink in, and then she bolted back upright. " _Satellite_! Sendak, get over here! I think I've got a way to reach the Castle!"

The Galra bounded back toward her, stopping a safe distance away, and eyed her. _"What is it?"_ he asked.

"I found a satellite!" she said, pointing down at the hunk of metal under her boots. "If Allura's in the Castle, she'll be able to pick up the Green Lion's energy if we can broadcast it far enough for her to detect, and they can come pick us up!"

Sendak hummed thoughtfully, brow furrowing. _"Will the Empire be able to detect your energy transmission as well?"_

"I dunno," Pidge replied. "How'd you find us on Arus?"

 _"I was given the name of the planet and looked for Altean spacecraft,"_ Sendak said drily. _"There was no scanning for Lions involved because we already had your location."_

"...How?"

 _"I don't know, but my best guesses have to do with the Witch."_ Sendak shook his head slightly, then said, _"Disregard that. What do you need me to do so you can build your transmitter?"_

Pidge eyed him dubiously. "Why are you being so helpful?"

 _"The sooner we contact the others, the sooner I'm not alone with_ you _,"_ Sendak shot back.

"...Fair," Pidge said, shrugging. "We're going to need to gather the materials to build this thing and get them all back over to Green so I can hook it up, and I'm gonna have to look over the satellite to see what needs fixed, and-"

 _"What_ materials _do you need?"_ Sendak interrupted.

"-Uh, connector cables, mostly, and signal antennae or anything else you can scavenge to amp up the signal? And if you can find a power core to help boost I wouldn't turn it down-"

 _"On it."_

And then he was gone, bounding off into the rings of junk. Half of the trasherpillars went with him, looping excitedly around his broad, dark form. Pidge watched until Sendak maneuvered around a half-crumpled hull and vanished, then pried open the service panel on the side of the satellite. No power. She couldn't tell what parts of it worked and what needed replaced if it wouldn't power on.

"...Whatever," she said, shrugged, and set to work excavating the satellite from the rest of the junk heap.

It took entirely too long to work the damn thing out of the garbage heap. Rust and solidified lubricants had all but fused the satellite to some of the surrounding junk, and it was too big to move easily, but finally, _finally_ , it came loose. Pidge shoved it back toward Green.

It moved maybe a foot. Pidge groaned in frustration and shoved it again. Another foot. Another. Pidge peeped up over the edge and whined when she realized how _far_ she was from Green. At this rate, she wasn't going to get anywhere. She screamed and kicked the satellite in frustration.

 _"Ow,"_ said Sendak, and Pidge blanched. She'd forgotten he was there.

"...Sorry about that," she said.

 _"Don't do it again,"_ Sendak grumbled. Pidge thought he sounded irritated, but it was hard to tell. _"I'm returning to the Green Lion now with what I've scavenged. Do you need assistance?"_

"Not from _you_ ," Pidge muttered."

 _"Is this_ really _the best time to be a petty brat?"_

"...Shut up or I'm zapping you."

 _"It wouldn't be the_ first _time today."_

It took a second or two for that to sink in, and then she scrambled up on top of the satellite to look for the Galra. "Wait, _what_? You've been _electrocuted_?"

 _"I've had worse,"_ Sendak said.

"No no no, wait a second, you were _electrocuted_ today?" She could see him now, further down the ring, taking enormous leaps toward her. "Who did it? Why?"

 _"Exactly who you think, and for the obvious reasons,"_ Sendak said coolly.

He was moving much more quickly than Pidge had thought, and within a few minutes his heavy boots slammed down on the satellite in front of her. She could hear his ragged breathing over the comms, watched his chest heave for air. He trailed a long streamer of black cable with various parts lashed to it like a tail. His head tilted slightly, studying her with that sharp yellow stare. She stared back, unflinching. Sendak didn't _look_ like he'd been electrocuted recently, but the suit and helmet hiding most of his body made it difficult to tell. His head tipped the other way.

 _"Why don't you take_ these _back to your Lion and allow me to handle the satellite?"_ Sendak suggested, offering her the cable.

Pidge lowered her gaze to his stomach, to the faintly discolored splotch along his abdomen and side. "Counteroffer," she said. "I'll take those back and then we move the satellite together."

Sendak's eye narrowed. _"This is because I told you about the electrocution, isn't it."_

"Yeah, and? What are you gonna go about it?" Pidge folded her arms across her chest.

Sendak growled and looked away. Pidge _thought_ she saw his ears twitch, but with the helmet confining them it was hard to tell. She reached out, grabbing the cable, and launched herself toward Green. Kicking on the jetpack halfway across gave her the boost she needed to make it, and she landed lightly beside the Lion. Another boosted leap got her up on Green's back, where she ditched the cable and scavenged parts. Sendak huffed in her ear, and Pidge looked up in time to watch the satellite lurch toward her. She hurled herself off Green, scrambling back over the junk to reach the satellite. It lurched again, then lifted free of the trash heap. Pidge landed hard and scrambled around to the other side.

Sendak grinned victoriously at her. _"_ That's _what I was going to do about it,"_ he said, sounding all too pleased with himself.

"Fucker," Pidge muttered.

Sendak's head tilted, brows creasing. _"...Fucker?"_

"Yeah." Pidge planted her hands against the satellite and shoved, activating her jetpack.

Sendak braced his shoulder against it and chipped in, and the satellite began to move smoothly under their combined effort. _"What does that even_ mean _?"_

"What, don't Galra have an equivalent term?"

 _"I don't_ know _, because none of you have deigned to give me a definition for the fuck word."_

"It's, uh, it's really vulgar slang for sexual intercourse." Pidge cringed a little saying it. "God, why couldn't you have asked _Lance_ or somebody?"

 _"Because Lance isn't here,"_ Sendak huffed. _"...This is one of your species' weird taboos, isn't it? Aliens are_ so _bizarre."_

"Hey, you're the ones who don't have slang for it!"

 _"Because it's_ not _vulgar or taboo! There's no reason to have insults or obscenities regarding something that isn't-"_ Sendak cut himself off, then said, _"...Actually, nevermind. It isn't important."_

Pidge braced herself against the satellite again and shoved. Sendak joined a second later, snarling with effort and throwing his whole weight against it, and the satellite began moving again. Slowly, slowly, inch by incremental inch until the momentum caught up. They gained real ground then, until finally, _finally_ , the satellite came to rest against Green's side. Pidge let herself float off it, panting for breath. Green rumbled somewhere in the back of her mind, pleased and affectionate and-proud?-yes, proud. Something warm swelled in her chest.

Then she righted herself and clapped her hands together. "Alright! Let's get started building this transmitter!"

 _"What do you need me to do?"_ Sendak rasped. When Pidge turned to look at him, he was still leaning against the satellite, shoulders slumped and brows pinched.

"...Nothing," Pidge said. "You already said you don't know anything about fixing tech, so you won't be any help with this. As long as you promise not to mess anything up or try to steal Green, you can hang out inside until I finish. Sound good?"

Sendak's head tilted, eye narrowing. _"You're being unusually nice."_

"And you're being unusually pathetic, now get in the Lion."

 _"_ There's _the rudeness I was expecting."_

"Fuck you. Get out of the way so I can rebuild this satellite."

Sendak pushed off the satellite and leapt toward her, toward Green's mouth. _"Sorry, I'm not interested in children, aliens, or alien children,"_ he said smugly.

He hurtled past her, and she spun around and shouted, "You know what I meant, you asshole!" at his retreating back. Sendak all but cackled in reply and disappeared around Green's bulk.

And then he was gone. Pidge set to work.

She'd expected Sendak to just grab parts at random, but as she sorted through what he'd retrieved, she realized he'd scavenged _everything_ she'd listed-and more, stuff she hadn't even considered. Structural supports, a complicated length of equipment she eventually recognized as an energy converter, not one but _three_ spare power cores at varying levels of charge. Not a bad haul, all things considered.

She scrambled on top of Green's shield and pried open a plate, revealing sockets underneath. Pidge had located them while adding the cloaking device to Green-she'd checked every inch of the Lion she could access, building her own blueprints because the originals had been behind three firewalls in a hidden file in some completely illogical location in the Castle's database. And written in Altean, as it turned out when she hacked the files. Really, at some point, she was going to teach herself to at least _read_ Altean, if not speak it.

Well, she wasn't going to manage that unless she got back to the Castle. Pidge shoved the thoughts aside and started piecing the transmitter together. Component after component, figuring how the scavenged parts fit together, the spire growing taller and taller atop Green's shield with each addition. Until, finally, it was time to wire in the last piece-the satellite itself. Pidge eyed it unhappily. Getting it up top where it needed to be was _not_ going to be pleasant, at least not on her own. She didn't necessarily _want_ to ask Sendak for help, especially after she'd told him to get out of her way, but, well…Pidge scrambled off Green's back and maneuvered her way over to the Lion's mouth.

Sendak wasn't in the cockpit like she'd expected. He hadn't just stopped in the airlock, either, and she'd thought he wasn't in the main chest cavity until a flicker of movement in the alcove between the back wall and the last 'rib' strut caught her eye. She tried to keep quiet as she approached, but it wasn't enough-Sendak peered out of the alcove, narrowing his eye when he spotted her.

"You're finished, then?" he asked.

"Not quite," Pidge said. "I still need to get the satellite up top and attached."

Sendak's ears tilted, and he arched a brow. "And you're going to ask me for help moving it." Not a question. He already knew the answer.

"...Yeah," Pidge said lamely.

Sendak sighed and lurched to his feet, grumbling something under his breath that she didn't quite catch. He swayed, clearly unbalanced, and braced himself against the wall for a moment or two. Then he pushed himself back upright and brushed past her. Pidge followed him back outside, watching his back and frowning.

He was hurt worse than he'd told her, that was obvious. She'd watched Shiro ignore his injuries after they retook the Castle, and he'd moved the same way: cautious, testing how far he could push before it was too much to take. Shiro hadn't let it stop him, though, and neither did Sendak. He prodded the satellite with the toe of a boot, then crouched beside it, hooked his forearm under it, and pushed upward. Pidge could see the strain in his legs, saw the junk under him actually crumple on itself beneath his feet. And the it was aloft. He sank back to his knees, head bowed.

 _"Your turn,"_ he panted.

"...Thanks," Pidge said.

She launched herself at the satellite, bracing her shoulder on the underside of the disc, and ignited her jetpack. Higher, higher, higher, until she was level with the top of her amplifier stack. Pidge let it drift upwards a couple more seconds, then grabbed hold of a ledge and pulled it back down on top. She fit herself into the narrow gap between the satellite and the rest of the stack, wired in the last connection, and pushed back out, down to a control panel further down. Another connection clicked shut, and the panel lit up.

"That ought to do it!" she said, and peered back down at Sendak. He offered her a tentative thumbs-up, which she returned, grinning eagerly. They'd done it. They'd _done_ it! "Let's see if we can get ahold of the Castle!"

Blue light raced up the sides of the tower, glowing lines and arcs of energy, all the way up to the disc and over the edge. And then she heard it. Something in the tower whirred and hummed distressingly. The lights higher up flickered and faded, dimming to black. Pidge wailed and jabbed frantically at the control panel, trying to get it to light back up.

"No! No, what's wrong?!" Nothing was responding. A scream built up in her throat. "We need to get _out_ of here, come _on_!"

Below her, Green threw her head back and _roared_.

The lights came back on, racing up the sides of the tower, all the way to the satellite disc. A moment later, a rippling pillar of cyan energy burst from the top, arching away into the trash nebula. Pidge all but sobbed with relief. Sendak whooped over the comms, startling her, and she turned to get a look at him. He looked back, and she could tell even at this distance that he was _elated_. She floated back down until she was eye-level with Green.

"Thanks," she said, beaming up at the Lion. "Now, let's see if this thing works!" She scrambled back inside, into the cockpit, and barely bothered to throw herself down into the chair before she started fiddling with controls. "...I hope the signal's strong enough to reach the Castle," she said under her breath.

 _"It had better be, or we're going to have a problem,"_ Sendak said.

"...What is it?"

 _"We must be closer to the edge of the wrecking yard than I thought. There's a cruiser out in one of those gas clouds, and I think they've sighted your distress signal."_

"...Shit. _Shit_." Pidge's hands rushed across the controls. "Come _on_!"

 _"They're beginning an approach,"_ Sendak said. There was a faint tremor in his voice, mostly masked but not quite enough to hide it. _"Still far out, and they'll have to navigate the wrecks, but they'll be here in fifteen, twenty doboshes if they don't crash."_

"What do we do?" she asked quietly.

 _"...We have two options,"_ Sendak said slowly. _"If you can maneuver your Lion in here, we can head deeper into the wrecking grounds and evade capture until they either begin blowing things up to come after us or retreat to call for reinforcements, but moving will cost us your distress signal and it may be a while until we can recreate it. Or we can remain here and either fight them when they arrive or cast off the satellite and flee, and hope the Castle arrives before they do."_

The cruiser had registered on her sensors now. Pidge squeezed her eyes shut. "I think we should wait and hope the Castle gets here first," she said. "I don't want to abandon the satellite unless we have to."

Sendak sighed. _"Let us hope the Castle reaches us first, then."_

Ten doboshes into the wait, Pidge's sensors detected a wormhole opening. She turned Green's head until she could see it, and the familiar shape of the Castle darting from it and flying toward them. Pidge whooped and scrambled from the cockpit, launching herself to float in gleeful rings around Sendak.

"We did it! We're getting out!"

The Galra snorted, but his expression was relieved. The trasherpillars circled them in wide, jubilant loops, and Pidge laughed out loud.

Her comms crackled a second later, and Allura's familiar voice hit her ears. _"You saved us, Pidge! We were stuck in a time loop!"_ The princess sounded as relieved as Pidge felt.

 _"Did you get us out with that giant trash pile?"_ That was Coran, and Pidge had never been so glad to hear his voice.

"It's a makeshift communications link that sends out the Green Lion's energy," she started, "like the one that guided the Blue-"

Sendak prodded her in the ribs. _"Cruiser. Keep it short,"_ he said tersely.

 _"Is that-"_ Allura started.

"Yeah, it's Sendak," Pidge said quickly. "Listen, we gotta get out of here. There's a Galra cruiser heading our way, and I don't wanna tangle with it."

 _"...Right,"_ Allura said. _"Come on, let's get out of here, and find the rest of the Paladins."_

"We're on our way now," Pidge said, and maneuvered back into Green's mouth. The quiet thunk behind her said Sendak had followed, but she ignored him until she'd landed Green safely in her hangar on board the Castle. Not that the Galra made himself obtrusive-he stayed silent, and that somehow made him more worrying. He stayed quiet all the way to the bridge, too, trailing her by a couple feet and avoiding her gaze whenever she looked back at him.

When they arrived at the bridge, Coran and Allura were visibly absorbed in some task with the controls. Allura had the 3D star map up and flicked through it, searching it intently. Coran was bowed over his control panel, but he looked up when they entered the room and flashed them a wide, welcoming smile. Pidge beamed back and very nearly launched herself across the room to hug him. She looked up at the viewscreens instead, taking in the wide, black expanse of space they displayed instead of the yellow-green bands of the trash nebula. For a moment or two she almost missed it.

And then one of the distant stars in the projection lit up, flashing black and red. Allura sighed with evident relief and zoomed in on it, lighting up the second planet in the solar system.

"There they are," she said, and turned to face the door. "Pidge, you're going to have to go and get them-we're undetected in this quadrant, and I'd rather we didn't have to move the Castle again until after we've rescued the other Paladins. We're going to need time to recharge after that...mess...at Zarkon's central command."

"I'm on it," Pidge said, and hurried back toward her hangar.


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N:** Chapter 2, right on schedule! This one's a little shorter than usual, but the next couple chapters are long, so...consider this a break.

* * *

Okay, it was official: the mermaid planet was the _weirdest_ thing that had happened to Hunk in a while, and that was saying something since he'd spent the last month in space flying a magical alien warship and saving the universe. He was still having trouble believing what had happened even as he urged Yellow up towards the distant surface. Ice planets, real mermaids, rebel conspiracy theorist mermaids, giant brainwashing space eel monsters-he wouldn't have believed any of it if he hadn't just lived through it. So...yeah. Weird, kinda sucky couple of days. The _best_ thing that happened, hands-down, was the mermaids turning out to have an energy beacon that the Castle could home in on and find them, _finally_. And, better than that, Yellow was picking up the Green Lion's energy signature now.

He'd never been happier to see Pidge and Green in his life. Yellow broke through the surface where the beacon had melted the ice at last, just as Blue surged past them and through the atmosphere to circle Green eagerly. Hunk pushed Yellow after them and joined the pair at the edge of the ice planet's atmosphere.

 _"Hunk! Lance!"_ Pidge exclaimed. _"You guys are alright!"_

 _"Where have you_ been _?"_ Lance shouted back. _"We've been on this planet for two days!"_

 _"...We've only been separated for-"_ Pidge started. _"...You know what, we'll talk about it later. Let's just get back to the Castle."_

"Lead the way," Hunk said. Pidge didn't make sense, but then again, she didn't make sense a _lot_ of the time. But if she was questioning how long they'd been separated...well, the wormhole was some kind of harnessed space-time anomaly, it wouldn't exactly surprise him if he and Lance had been tossed out at some earlier time than the others, or if there was some kind of time dilation on their exits.

 _"Did you guys find Keith and Shiro yet?"_ Lance asked, snapping Hunk out of his train of thought.

 _"Yeah, they were_ way _easier to find than you guys, probably because all that ice was blocking your signal,"_ Pidge said. _"Shiro was hurt pretty bad, so he's already in the cryopods."_ A pause, and then she added, _"And you guys are_ never _gonna guess who was in that fighter pod that helped us out at Central Command."_

 _"Uhhh...an escaped Galra prisoner?"_ Lance suggested.

 _"Nope,"_ Pidge said.

"A rebel fighter?" Hunk asked.

 _"Well, kinda."_ He could hear the laugh in Pidge's tone. _"It was Sendak."_

 _"_ What _?!"_ Lance squawked.

"Really?" Hunk asked.

 _"Yeah,"_ Pidge said. _"He's not telling anyone what happened to him or how he escaped, though, I think he said something about wanting to wait until everyone was back to explain because he 'didn't want to repeat himself' or something."_

 _"...So he's alright?"_ Lance asked. There was a definite note of concern in his voice.

 _"I don't know,"_ Pidge said. _"He hasn't been_ complaining _about anything, but that doesn't mean nothing's wrong."_

They hit the wormhole, and for a second or two Hunk found himself tensed up on the controls, like he was expecting it to start collapsing on them or something. Yellow hummed soothingly at him, and Hunk shook his head to clear it. That was a _one-time_ thing because of something the Galra did, not something wormholes did on their own. Well, he sure hoped it was. Once was enough. And the Alteans probably wouldn't use a technology that failed on you like that. Probably. And then they were out the other side of the wormhole, and there was the Castle, hovering in empty space.

Hunk urged Yellow on, back towards the hangar entrance, and they landed neatly on the floor. He winced at the furrows in the steel where Yellow's claws had dug in when the wormhole ripped them out of the Castle, but the damage looked like it was more cosmetic than anything. It wasn't that bad, all things considered. Yellow lowered his head, and Hunk made his way out of the Lion, pausing to pat one massive paw.

"Thanks, buddy," he said. "Wouldn't have made it out of there without you."

Yellow rumbled affectionately in response, and Hunk patted the paw again before he left the hangar.

Pidge and Lance were waiting in the hall, helmets off, both of them looking a little rough around the edges. A couple space battles and getting chucked out of a compromised wormhole would do that to you, he figured. Pidge grinned up at him. Then, to his surprise, she launched herself across the hall and all but tackled him with a hug. Hunk hugged her back.

"I'm glad you guys are okay," Pidge said, eventually detaching herself.

"Me too," Hunk said, shooting Lance a look.

Lance nodded and reached out to ruffle Pidge's hair. "Yeah, me three," he said. "So, you said Shiro's in the med bay, right? Where's everyone else?"

"Up on the bridge," Pidge said.

"I can't believe Allura actually let Sendak up there," Hunk said.

"Well it's not like we can really do anything _else_ with him," Pidge retorted. "Shiro's in cryo, Keith's bushed, I had to go get you guys, and I think Allura and Coran would rather have Sendak where they can keep an eye on him right now."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Lance said. "Come on, let's go."

Pidge led the way back up to the bridge, and when the doors opened Hunk paused and took a second to look everything over. Keith was curled up in his chair, head tucked against his knees. He stirred a little at the sound of their footsteps and peered at them through his dark bangs, then settled back into his original position. Allura stood at her command podium, running some kind of scan. She didn't glance up, intent on the readouts from her screen. Coran and Sendak were up by Coran's control panel, leaning against the counter. Coran's gaze was fixed on the stars out the viewscreens. Sendak seemed to be looking at the floor, but he looked up at them as they came in, ears flicking upright immediately.

"Well, look who made it back," Sendak rumbled, sounding pleased.

"Speak for yourself, dude, we thought you were _dead_!" Lance exclaimed, maneuvering around the chairs to get across the bridge. "How'd you make it out?"

"Good fortune and a friend in the right place," Sendak said. He tilted his head, clearly studying the two of them. "Have you and Hunk been in a fight?"

"...Yeah," Hunk said. "How could you _tell_?"

Sendak gestured vaguely at them. "Your armor is scuffed in places it wasn't when I saw you last."

"You will _never_ believe what happened," Lance said. "We crash-landed on this frozen ocean planet, and there were _actual mermaids_ there, real, actual mermaids, and we totally saved the whole planet from this giant underwater monster that was mind-controlling everyone to eat them, and-"

"Woah there Lance, slow down a bit, I think he's still working through that," Hunk said, grinning at the way Sendak's ears tilted and his brow furrowed in confusion.

Sendak shook his head slightly. "...Either my translator is glitching, or I'm too tired to process things properly, because _nothing_ you said made sense," he said. He turned back to Coran and said, "Could I go back to my cell now? I think I need to sleep for a couple quintants after all of this."

Coran blinked, then frowned. "Why would we put you back in a cell after what you've done to help us today? I'm going to set up quarters for you on the residential floor, hold on a tick."

"If it would be more convenient to return to my cell for now, really, I wouldn't mind. I don't want to cause you any inconvenience-" Sendak started, but Coran held up a hand to stop him.

"Ah, ah, ah, I won't hear of it! Come on, let's get you set up somewhere more comfortable than a holding cell."

"Really, it's not important-" Sendak protested.

"Just shut up and quit fighting," Pidge interjected.

"Can it, runt," Sendak snapped back, flattening his ears. Pidge glowered back, baring her teeth, which Hunk thought was a little weird until he noticed the way Sendak's ears lowered in response. "...Fine. I'll accept your offer."

"Come on, then," Coran said, taking hold of Sendak's elbow and pulling him away from the control panel.

Sendak pulled his arm out of Coran's grasp but followed him without protest. He looked tired, Hunk thought, swaying with each uncertain step. What had _he_ been through, to look that beat? Sendak had been more put together after they'd taken the Castle back, and that was saying something.

Hunk fell into step behind Coran, and Pidge and Lance joined him a second later. Keith stumbled up to Hunk's side and leaned against his shoulder, wiping the sleep out of his eyes. Hunk grinned and slung his arm around Keith's shoulders to keep him upright. Coran led them back to the elevators and down onto the main floor, then took a left out of the elevators instead of a right, heading away from the Paladins' rooms.

They only made it a few doors down before Sendak's knees buckled. The Galra went down hard on his left side without trying to catch himself, and for a minute everything seemed to freeze. Then Sendak gasped and curled in on himself, breaking the paralysis, and Hunk found himself hurrying forward to help Coran roll Sendak onto his back.

"What just happened?" Lance demanded from somewhere over Hunk's shoulder.

"Are you alright?" Coran asked.

Sendak nodded, eye still screwed shut. "Fine," he said. The word came out strained and harsh.

"Didn't you say you were hurt there earlier?" Pidge asked, and when Hunk glanced back her eyebrows had arched suspiciously.

"I said, I'm fine," Sendak growled, pushing himself back to a sitting position and looking around at them. His ears flattened again. "I'm fine. I'm just tired, a couple vargas to rest and I'll be alright."

"Then what's with the blood on your uniform?" Keith asked, making them all jump. Sendak shifted his arm across his abdomen, drawing Hunk's eye to it-and to the stain across the front and left side, a shade or two darker than the rest.

"...Dude, I think you need to go to the infirmary," Hunk said.

Sendak's ears flattened further. "I _said_ -"

"I think what you've said and the truth are two very different creatures," Coran said. He patted Sendak's shoulder gently. "What about this: you come to the infirmary, and if it's nothing serious you can come back up here and rest."

"None of you are _listening_ to me," Sendak muttered.

"I understand you're frustrated, but we're concerned for your health," Coran coaxed. "It won't take more than a couple of doboshes, and if you're as fine as you say you are, you should be back here and in bed before you know it."

Sendak's shoulders slumped. "...Alright," he muttered, looking away.

Coran tucked an arm under Sendak's shoulders, helping the Galra back to his feet. Sendak stumbled slightly, but stayed upright under his own power, and Coran stepped away. He stayed close, though, and Hunk fell into step at Sendak's other side. Sendak looked uncomfortable-his ears flattened themselves close against his skull, and his head tilted as if he was looking from side to side for an escape route and trying to hide it. He kept it together down to the infirmary, though, and Coran opened up a side room none of them had noticed before and guided Sendak inside. A quick glance said it probably wasn't big enough for all of them-just a bench, a cabinet-slash-sanitation station, and that was it. Coran looked them over and waved Hunk in.

"Just in case," he said quietly in Hunk's ear. Then, to Sendak, he said, "Alright, let's have that uniform off and see what we're dealing with here."

Sendak looked displeased, but obeyed. The guilty look on his face and the length of bandage wrapped clumsily around his abdomen outed his lie. Coran's brow pinched with concern.

"Sendak," he said sternly.

Sendak glowered back. "It's _not serious_ ," he growled.

"Then let's have the bandages off and see these "not-serious" injuries."

Sendak folded his arm across his chest, tucking his hand under his stump and frowning petulantly. "No. Why don't you just take me at my word and let me go?"

Coran crossed his arms, eyes narrowing. "Bandages off. _Now_."

"Uh, you better do it," Hunk said, shooting Sendak an emphatic look.

Sendak flattened his ears and complied, tugging on the loose end of bandage and hissing with pain. He growled at them when Coran offered to help and haltingly unraveled them on his own, eventually unearthing two wide gauze pads pressed inexpertly to his side and stomach, which he made no move to peel away. Coran tapped his foot on the floor.

"Well?" he said. With a wince, Sendak removed the pad on his stomach.

Hunk almost threw up. A wide, ragged-edged expanse of fur and skin had been stripped away, revealing oozing, bluish flesh underneath. He looked away, staring up at Coran's face to gauge his reaction. Coran's eyes had narrowed further, but the quirk of his mouth said he was worried rather than angry.

"...What did this?" he asked, taking a couple steps forward to inspect the injury.

"Druid," Sendak mumbled. He ducked his head and stared intently at the floor.

"And just what is a druid?"

"Stars if I know."

"And is the other injury like this one?" Coran moved closer, stooping to get a closer look and blocking Hunk's view.

"Did he say druids?" Lance asked from the doorway.

"Yeah," Hunk said, looking back at the others.

Lance and Keith exchanged a worried look, brows creasing sharply, then peered further into the room to get a glimpse. Behind him, Sendak yelped, and Hunk spun back around. Coran had apparently yanked the gauze off the other injury, and from the look on Sendak's face he wasn't pleased.

"Alright, alright, you've had your look, now may I go rest?" Sendak snapped.

"You can go directly into the pods, young man," Coran snapped back. "These are serious injuries, I can't in good conscience let you leave the infirmary in this condition."

"These aren't _serious_ at all, I've had much worse than a couple scrapes-"

"And just how long have you been bleeding?" Sendak went quiet, and Coran repeated, more gently, "How long have these bled, Sendak?"

"...I don't know," Sendak said quietly, looking away.

Coran sighed. "Are you hiding any other injuries?"

"Does it matter?"

"Well, I think we'd all like to know how long you're going in the cryopod for."

"I'm not going in the cryopod."

Dead silence.

Then Coran said, very calmly, "What?" Hunk had never heard that tone of voice before, low and firm and eerily cool, and it sent shivers up his spine.

"I'm not going in the cryopod," Sendak repeated. "I refuse."

"Well I don't know where else you think you're going, because you're not leaving the infirmary like that," Coran said.

"I'm _not_ going in the pods," Sendak snapped. "I don't _care_ what you have to say, I'm not going in the pods. I refuse."

"And why not?" Coran asked, his tone still cool.

Sendak froze up, then snapped, "Because I don't want to. I'm not going in the pods, and that's final."

"I think the blood loss may have disoriented you. Come on, on your feet. We're going to the cryopods _right now_."

"No!" Everything seemed to freeze at once. Sendak hadn't raised his voice before, but he did now-and he sounded panicked. "No, I won't-no-" Coran grabbed for Sendak's arm, and the Galra jerked it out of his grasp. "No, _please_!"

That made Coran pause. "...'Please'?"

Sendak wrapped his arm around himself and looked at the floor, shoulders shuddering with each breath. "Please," he said softly. "I-I can't do it. Not now. Not after...please, just give me a varga or two to rest and calm down and then I will be ready, but…"

"Not after _what_?" Hunk asked. "What happened to you?"

Sendak's head snapped up to look at him, and his ears flattened against the sides of his head, eye widening with...fear? "Don't ask me that again," he said, so quietly it was almost impossible to hear him.

"Wait a tick," Coran said. "Let me see your arm."

Sendak leaned away from him, ears flattening further. "No. Don't touch me."

Coran held his hands up. "It's alright, I don't intend to do you any harm. I just want a look…" He shifted to Sendak's left side and crouched, peering intently at the gleaming cybernetic ports in the stump of his left arm. "...Are those burns?"

Sendak flinched back, moving to cover his stump. Coran sighed.

"You don't need to tell me what happened, but I do need to know whether or not that's a burn," he said, taking a step back. Sendak relaxed infinitesimally.

"He said he got electrocuted earlier," Pidge chipped in from the doorway.

"Is that true?" Coran asked, his tone deceptively mild.

"...What will you do if it is?" Sendak replied.

"Will it change whether or not you allow us to help you?" Coran asked. Sendak didn't respond, and the Altean sighed heavily. After a long moment, he said, "What is it you're afraid of?"

Sendak curled in on himself and made a quiet hiccuping sound. He looked...almost small, like he was trying to compress himself out of existence, and at second glance he was trembling. He didn't look away, though, and stared up at Coran with an uncertain look on his face. His lower lip wobbled.

And then he said, in a very small voice, "I just want it to _stop_."

Hunk's throat tightened in sympathy.

Coran crouched so their faces were level and said gently, "I understand. None of us are going to hurt you here, I promise you. We want to help, but we can't unless you let us." A pause, and then Coran said, "Will you allow us to help you?"

Sendak let out a faint, breathy sigh. "...Please, just let me go," he whispered.

Coran crossed his arms. "I'm sorry. I can't allow you to leave the infirmary in this condition."

Hunk hesitated, then tapped Coran on the shoulder. "Uh, dude, I don't think that's gonna work the way you want it to."

Coran jumped and turned to face him. "Oh?" He paused, glanced back at Sendak-who somehow managed to look miserable _and_ pissed off at the same time-and said, "I think I see your point. What do you suggest?"

"...Hey, Keith? You think you could help?" Hunk asked, turning to look over his shoulder at the door.

"I could try," Keith said.

Coran began moving toward the door, and even if Hunk hadn't been watching Sendak he would have noticed the way the Galra's ears perked back up almost immediately. Keith maneuvered in past him and stopped next to Hunk, well out of reach of Sendak, and tilted his head thoughtfully. Sendak tilted his head in response, and the hard furrow between his brows relaxed.

"You should have gone back to your room to sleep already," Sendak said.

Keith shrugged. "Didn't want to before everyone got back." A pause. "What about you?"

"...I've survived worse," Sendak said, ears twitching.

Keith crossed his arms, and Sendak's ears lowered almost immediately. The corner of his mouth quirked up. Keith's head tilted the other way. Sendak sighed and let his shoulders slump.

"...It's the enclosed space," he said finally.

"Yeah," Keith said. Sendak nodded. Keith shifted his weight from one foot to the other, then added, "Coran's not gonna let up until you agree."

"Coran should learn a little patience," Sendak retorted, but there was no venom in it. A pause, almost uncomfortable in length. Then Sendak said, "I know it won't harm me, but I can't uncouple not being able to move and what they...how they tried to force me to talk."

"Shiro's in the pods, and he's fine," Keith said. Then he yawned, jaw-crackingly.

All the tension in Sendak's face dissolved, and he pushed himself carefully to his feet and reached out to ruffle Keith's hair. "If I go, will you rest?"

Keith almost seemed to press his head up against Sendak's palm for a moment, then said, "Yeah."

Hunk's jaw dropped. He...hadn't just seen that, had he? No way. But by the time he'd actually gotten around to a double-take, Sendak had withdrawn his hand and was beginning to make his way towards the door and the main part of the infirmary. He hurried to catch up, sticking close behind Sendak. Just in case he collapsed again. And so he could keep an eye on Keith, who'd stuck to Sendak's right side like a shadow.

He almost bumped into Sendak at the door-the Galra had stopped dead just inside the doorway to flatten his ears and scowl at Coran. Coran stared back levelly, and Hunk could see the muscles in Sendak's back tensing up.

"So you've decided to cooperate?" Coran asked.

"I'm not doing this because of _you_ ," Sendak spat.

Coran leaned back, looking stunned. "Wh-I _beg your pardon_?"

"I _said_ , I'm not doing this because you pushed me into it," Sendak said. His head tilted toward Keith, ever so slightly, and though Hunk couldn't see his face he could imagine the look on it.

"...Ah, I see," Coran said. There was a pause, and then he added, "I'm going to have to ask you to finish taking that suit off before you go into the cryopods."

Sendak sighed and moved out of the doorway. Hunk hurried out to rejoin Lance and Pidge, who immediately moved to flank him. Keith took his time to join them, lingering beside Sendak until the Galra shot him a look with his ears flattened.

"You don't need to stay and watch," Sendak said, shooting them all what could only be interpreted as a dirty look.

"Ah, wait a tick, before you all go," Coran said quickly, holding up a hand to keep them from taking off. "Does _anyone else_ need medical treatment?"

Pidge shook her head. It took Keith a second or two to respond, but he shook his head and mumbled something about sleeping for a week. Hunk mumbled the negative and eyed Lance, waiting for him to speak up. He didn't remember what happened while he was brainwashed that well, but he was almost certain…Lance shook his head 'no', and Hunk decided to leave it. He'd ask Lance himself later, just to make sure he wasn't misremembering things.

Coran nodded, still watching them thoughtfully. "You four should get some rest while you can."

A pause. The Keith rubbed at his eyes with the back of his hand and mumbled, "'M heading to bed. See you guys tomorrow." Then he turned around and stumbled out of the room, back toward the elevator.

"You ought to rest too, Pidge," Coran said.

"Alright, alright," Pidge grumbled. "I'm going. I'll be up in time to see Shiro out, though, I'm not _that_ tired."

Hunk glanced sideways at Lance, noting the beginnings of dark circles under his eyes. He probably hadn't slept as much as Hunk had on the mermaid planet, with the being kidnapped by the rebel mermaids thing, and he was starting to look it. Hunk sighed and slung his arm around Lance's shoulder.

"C'mon, dude. Let's go get a nap and some food goo or something."

"Just as long as it's not Baku, huh?" Lance said, grinning wryly, and Hunk chuckled.

"Oh yeah. No more mind control aliens," he agreed. "See you later, Coran."

They were out before Coran could actually answer; the Altean had returned his attention to Sendak and the cryopods and only looked up once they'd left the room. Lance shrugged out from under Hunk's arm halfway to the elevator and slouched against the wall once they were in, studying the wall with uncharacteristic intensity. Hunk's gut clenched.

"Hey, Lance," he started. "About the mind control thing-"

"It wasn't your fault, man," Lance said, cutting him off. "The Baku and the queen were controlling you, there's no way you would've done that on your own."

"Yeah, I know, but," Hunk hesitated, gathering his thoughts. "I didn't hurt you too bad, did I?"

"Nah," Lance replied. "My armor had me covered, it took most of the damage. Dude, you knocked the air out of me like _once_ and that was it."

"That's, uh, that's good?" Hunk said. The elevator dinged, doors opening on the residential floor, and they stumbled out together, bumping into each others' shoulders and knocking each other off balance.

"Yeah," Lance said. "Come on, let's go get something to eat! I wonder if we can get the kitchen to do anything _other_ than goo."

As it turned out, they couldn't. The food synthesizer wouldn't do anything but the regular food goo, no matter how Hunk fiddled with the settings, which was a disappointment. It almost made him wish for the Baku again-he was getting sick of green goop, and from the look on Lance's face he wasn't the only one. They took their bowls back to the table and ate them as fast as they could manage. Hunk tried not to cringe at the texture, slimy and somehow gritty, like the particles stuck to the inside of his mouth. He was never going to get over the taste of it either. He'd never say it to Coran or Allura's faces, but most of the Altean foods he'd encountered smelled at least a little like a compost heap. The food goo was somewhat _fresher_ in smell, not quite rotten and fermented, but not exactly what he'd call appetizing either. Bitter, while also being sour and slightly musty. Not his flavor profile of choice, not by a long shot. He ate anyway. Not like there were many options shipside when they hadn't stopped by a planet in a while.

Man. He was going to have to pick up supplies the next time they landed, and figure out how to preserve at least _some_ of them for shelf stability while they were in deep space, because he wasn't going to be able to keep doing this food goo thing. Good food was a foundation, his mom had said when he was younger, and he wasn't going to give that up just because he'd left the planet. No way. Which meant figuring out space food. He'd be lying if he said he wasn't excited to try it out. New planets, new ingredients every time they touched down...there were whole _worlds_ opening up, literally.

Lance shovelled down his last spoonful of goo a full minute before Hunk did, but he stuck around, tapping his spoon restlessly against the rim of his bowl and staring at the wall behind Hunk, brows furrowing thoughtfully.

"Hey, Hunk," he said, once Hunk finished his own goo. "What do you think Pidge was talking about when she asked how long we'd been separated from the group?"

Hunk shrugged. "I _think_ she might have been talking about some kinda...space-time distortion from the compromised wormhole."

"...I don't get it," Lance said. The crease between his brows deepened.

"Okay, so the wormholes are basically a tunnel through the fabric of space, right? It's like...sewing, like we pinch the fabric of space and push through to the other side of the fold almost instantly. But according to basically all theories of relativity, bending space has a warping effect on time, too, so it moves differently on the thing going through the wormhole than it does on the rest of the universe." Hunk paused, watching Lance's face. "You with me so far?"

"Yeah," Lance said, nodding. "I _think_ so."

"Right, so because something went _really wrong_ with that wormhole, it chucked us all out at different points in space. And I think Pidge was asking because she thinks it might've chucked us out at different points in _time_ , too, like some of us might have left the wormhole at an _earlier_ point in the rest of the universe's flow of time, and some of us might have left it at _later_ points."

"Wait wait wait," Lance said, holding up his hands. "You think the wormhole might have chucked us _back in time_?"

"Not _us_ , and not _back_ ," Hunk said. "I cross-referenced our suits' chronometers with the Lion's chronometers, and we left the wormhole with about ten minutes after we entered it, rest-of-the-universe time, but the way Pidge was talking, the rest of them have only been out of the wormhole for, like, twelve hours, tops."

"So you're saying the others got thrown _forward_ in time, and we stayed almost the same?" Lance asked. "Weird."

"...Yeah, I think that's what she meant," Hunk said. "I only sorta get it, we only have math and thought experiments on space-time distortion and none of us can read Altean to study their research, which...kinda sucks."

Lance snorted. "Yeah, I bet. Pidge would be _all_ over that kinda stuff."

"I think she said something about wanting to learn to read Altean once," Hunk said.

"Well, if anyone can do it, it's Pidge," Lance said, leaning back in his chair and stretching. "Man. All this space-time weirdness is making me tired."

Hunk chuckled. "Yeah, me too. Let's go get a nap or something."


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N:** Hey guys! Sorry about how late this one is-my previous semester at college was really rough, and I burned out before I could get this chapter finished. It's over now, though, and here's the chapter!

* * *

 _Dim violet lights. Restraints on his wrists, his legs, keeping him pinioned as large, dark shapes move around him. He struggles, protesting, his voice distant and wavering as if heard underwater. Stinging pain in his left arm, the real one. A hand slaps the stinging thing away, a voice growls something. A dark shape turns, recedes._

 _Movement. Violence. Metal crashes on metal, and the hands are back, doing something to his-not-his right arm, the growling voice speaks but his world grows dark-_

 _The Galra slaps him across the face, jerking him back to awareness. "_ Wake up _," they growl. "_ Zarkon has located the Blue Lion of Voltron on your planet Earth. You must get to it before he does _." Their hands move nimbly across a panel to Shiro's right and the straps dissipate like light into the table._

 _"_ What are you doing _?" Shiro asks. His voice sounds shaky and strange in his ears._

 _"_ I've planted a bomb to cover your escape _," the Galra says, ignoring his question. They-no, he, Shiro thinks, slides a hand under Shiro's back, helping him sit up. "_ Get to a pod, now _."_

 _"_ Who _are_ you _?" Shiro asks, staring at the Galra._

 _The Galra helps him to the door before he answers, peering around for sentries or other soldiers. "_ I am Ulaz _," he says, and the rest of his words blur strangely, but Shiro hears '_ get to the coordinates in your arm _' and '_ Blade of Marmora _' with shocking clarity-_

 _And then the Galra-_ Ulaz, Ulaz, he must remember Ulaz _-is gone and the world is stumbling and dark corridors, the heavy measured sentry tread, the blur of the hangar and clattering metal on metal and they catch him before he reaches the escape pod but the explosion knocks him through the doors anyway. Crunch of metal on metal, sentry scissored in half and engine roar and the world spins spins spins-_

And Shiro opened his eyes and found himself on the other side of the cryopod's blue front, the rest of his team beaming up at him with relief in their faces. The barrier faded, leaving Shiro to stagger out on shaky legs and let his team bear him up. He wasn't going to be doing _that_ again any time soon if he could help it-his head was spinning, and part of him just wanted to sit down and put his head between his knees until it stopped.

"Shiro," Keith said, from his spot under Shiro's left arm. "Good to see you up."

"Yeah, man," Lance said. "When Hunk and I got back and found out you were in the pods, we were worried sick!"

Shiro grinned despite himself. "It's good to _be_ up," he said, trying to ignore the nagging violet blurs in the back of his head. _Ulaz. He had to remember Ulaz._

He got his legs under him properly, lifting himself off the others' shoulders. Hunk kept a hand on his back until Shiro nodded at him, but he and Keith stuck closer than Pidge and Lance, both of whom moved toward Allura and Coran at the control panel. But something was missing-

"Where's Sendak?" he asked.

"In the pod next to yours," Coran said. "He managed to hide some pretty serious injuries until after we'd rescued Lance and Hunk, and he'll be in there for another two vargas or so."

Coran's moustache twitched upward with a smile when he made eye contact with Shiro, relief obvious on his face. Allura looked relieved too, and for a second or two Shiro was tempted to cross to her and hug her. He didn't, but he flashed her a smile and she returned it, teeth bright against her dark skin. His heart skipped a beat. Then he shook himself. He had to focus.

"...While I was in the pod I remembered something about my escape," he said. He hesitated, watching the others' faces for reactions, noting the expressions of concern. "One of the Galra helped me get out."

The room exploded with voices-everyone talking over each other at once, and Shiro couldn't understand more than a snippet or two at a time-Allura insisting it wasn't possible, Keith's voice raised and Lance arguing him back, Hunk and Pidge stumbling over each other's concerns-

And then Coran slapped a hand down on the control panel. "Alright, that's enough," he declared, loud enough that the others fell quiet almost immediately. "Give Shiro a little room to explain."

"Thank you, Coran," Shiro said. He took a deep breath, steeled himself, and started over. "A Galra helped me get back to Earth," he said, trying to straighten out the dark-and-violet images in his head. Only Ulaz's white and lilac face was clear and distinct, but he needed more than that alone. "I think he said he was part of a rebel group. I don't remember the name, but he gave me coordinates to find him again, and he helped me get out of the base."

Silence.

"You remember the coordinates?" Keith asked.

Shiro held up his right hand. "He had some kind of data drive, and he uploaded the coordinates into my arm," he said.

"Are they coded, or what?" Pidge asked.

"I don't remember," Shiro said. "He just said he'd loaded them, and that they would lead me to his group."

"...I don't like this," Allura said, frowning thoughtfully.

"We have a way to check if Shiro remembered it right, though," Hunk said. "Like, we can look at the data in his arm and check for coordinates, right?"

"We could," Coran said, stroking his moustache thoughtfully. "I think we have an old interface that will connect to Galra systems in storage somewhere."

"Then we should check," Pidge said immediately. "If it's coordinates I can find them, and if it was a virus or something I can root it out and destroy it before it turns the arm against Shiro or something."

"Geez, you make it sound like an evil AI in a sci-fi movie or something," Lance said. Hunk snorted.

"I think we should check," Shiro said.

The others looked at each other, and Shiro's heart sank a little. He wasn't sure he liked their expressions-concerned, confused, skeptical, except for Pidge, who looked excited to play with a new piece of technology. This was _not_ going to go well. Allura was going to veto him, he could tell just from the way her chest rose as she took a breath to answer him.

Keith beat her to the punch. "Let's just do it," he said, brows furrowed as if daring anyone to challenge him.

"Alright, then!" Coran said, clapping his hands together. "Keith, Lance, you come with me. We're going to go find that old interface."

"But-" Lance protested.

"No buts, come on," Coran said, catching hold of Lance's shoulder and towing him out. Keith hurried to catch up. Pidge grabbed Hunk's forearm, and Shiro half-recognized the look passed between them before they too left the room, leaving him and Allura alone in the med bay. She looked uncertain for a moment or two, then walked over and set her hand on his arm.

"Shiro, are you certain about this?" she asked.

"I have to know," Shiro said. "Princess, if I remembered right, we might have more allies than just subjugated planets we'll need to free first."

Allura's brow pinched. "Do you think we can trust him? Your Galra ally, that is."

"He helped me escape," Shiro replied. He sighed, then said, "I can't be sure. I don't think I _can_ be sure until we check it out, but I'm willing to take that risk if it means we have a better chance against Zarkon."

Allura went quiet, studying him with those sharp-as-crystal eyes, and Shiro met her gaze steadily.

"We brought your clothing down so you could change into it once you came out of the pod," Allura said, finally. "They're in that examination room, you can change in there."

Shiro felt a smile tug at the corner of his mouth. "Thank you, Princess," he said.

"It was Lance's idea, but I'll tell him you appreciate it," she said.

Then she turned away, and Shiro slipped into the examination room. He spotted his clothing immediately, the only dark thing in a white and chrome space, folded neatly on the bench. It was almost a _shame_ to unfold them-they certainly wouldn't look that nice again for a while-but he did it anyway, peeling off the white cryopod suit and tugging the shirt on over his head. A vaguely floral scent clung to the fabric. Someone must have washed it while he was in the pod. They'd done his pants, too, he noted. Hell, they'd even gotten his _vest_ , and he wasn't sure he'd washed it since he _bought_ it two years before Kerberos. The floral wouldn't have been his first choice, but it was better than what the vest had started to smell like. He zipped up the front and moved out to rejoin the world-or, at least, the rest of the Castle.

Green's hangar was busier than he'd ever seen it when he and Allura joined the others. Pidge, Hunk, and Coran crowded around her computer, trying to configure Coran's ancient connector cable to work with Pidge's laptop. Lance lingered off to the side, watching them intently. Shiro couldn't see Keith anywhere, but then a second later he maneuvered past carrying a chair, which he set down next to the computer table.

"That oughta do it," Pidge said abruptly, and Shiro caught a glimpse of her screen lighting up, numbers and letters dancing across it. "Is Shiro down here yet?"

"I'm right here, Pidge," Shiro said, moving over to join them.

"Sit," she said, pointing at the chair.

Shiro sat, and a second later Coran had hold of his prosthetic's forearm and turned it this way and that, inspecting it as if searching for something. Then his fingers pressed on _something_ , and a panel at Shiro's wrist lifted, revealing a port.

"There we are," Coran said.

Hunk handed over the connector cable, and Coran plugged it in. Shiro tensed. It took him a second to realize he hadn't felt a thing, then another to wonder why he'd _expected_ to. Pidge's screen blinked, then began scrolling numbers. Her eyes darted, scanning it intently.

"...I'm not finding any coordinates in here," she said eventually. "Are you sure this wasn't just a dream?"

Shiro sighed. "I'm _positive_. Someone helped me escape."

"And he was Galra," Allura said. There was just a _bit_ more sting to her tone than Shiro felt it called for.

" _Yes_ ," he said.

"You know you _cannot_ trust them." Her voice sharpened further.

"Your father must have trusted them once," Shiro snapped. "Zarkon _was_ the original Black Paladin, wasn't he?"

Allura froze. Then she looked away, scowling. "That was a long time ago," she muttered.

"Wait, what?" Lance asked.

"Didn't you see how he stole the Black Lion right out from under Shiro?" Keith snapped. "Or that he could do all that cool stuff with his bayard, _Shiro's_ bayard? You know, the _black_ one?"

"Why didn't you just tell us the _truth_ about Zarkon?" Shiro asked, leaning forward and looking up at Allura.

Allura sighed and studied the floor. "I wanted to protect you from the dark history of the Paladins, so that you would have a chance to bond with your Lions on your own." She lifted her head, locking her eyes with Shiro's. " _You_ are the Black Paladin now, not Zarkon."

Shiro's gut swooped out from under him, and he forced himself to tear away from her gaze. "Yeah, well, the Black Lion may have a different take on the matter," he said.

"Wait a second," Pidge said abruptly, and he snapped his head up to look at her. "I think I see it now-some repeating numbers in all this Galra code. Lemme extract it…" A large screen on the wall lit up, displaying a coded sequence, several graphs, and what looked like a diagram of a solar system. Pidge grinned. "They _are_ coordinates! They lead here, the Thaldycon system."

"Then that's where we're headed," Shiro said, standing up and disconnecting the cable at his wrist.

"...Shiro, are you sure we can trust this?" Keith asked. "-I mean, after all the Galra did to you-they-they took your _arm_." When Shiro turned to look at him, Keith's face was pinched with barely-hidden concern.

"It's worth the risk," Shiro said. " _Someone_ helped me escape. If we can locate some allies in our fight against Zarkon, _especially_ ones from his own side, we might just find a way to take him down."

"We can check the location, but I do _not_ like this," Allura stated.

Something that was _definitely_ not Pidge's computer beeped-a repeating triple, softest on the first note and loudest on the last. Shiro jumped, then looked around for the source. Coran pulled his tablet from his pocket and opened it, peering at the alert.

"Oh _quiznak_ ," he said.

"What is it?" Hunk asked, craning his neck to peer at the tablet.

"Sendak's cryopod is open," Coran replied. " _Quiznak_! He was supposed to be in there another varga at least." He stuffed the tablet back into his pocket and looked up, meeting Shiro's gaze. "Shiro, would you mind coming with me to help with him?"

"Not at all," Shiro said.

Coran left the hangar without another word, and Shiro hurried after him, keeping up easily with the Altean's stride. The walk down hadn't felt nearly so far, but now the white hallways seemed to stretch endlessly, the elevator ride a long, frozen eternity. Every time they turned a corner Shiro thought was the last it turned out there was only more hallway.

And then they rounded another corner, and Shiro's ears caught something other than their hurried footsteps and heavy breathing. A voice. Faint, distant-sounding, and when it faded away Shiro almost thought he'd imagined it. Then it called again, and he recognized it-Sendak's deep, rough, throaty tones, distinctive even at a distance. He sped up, passing Coran and hurtling around the last corner and down the hallway to the med bay.

For a hot second, he thought the room was empty. Then his eyes landed on the huddled shape at the foot of the cryopod-Sendak, curled up in a ball and shuddering. He hurried across the room and crouched next to the Galra, setting his hand on Sendak's shoulder. Sendak flinched under his touch, raising his head to look at Shiro. His eye was wide, ears flat to his skull.

Another tremor wracked him, and he doubled over again, heaving under Shiro's hand and gagging like a cat with a hairball-but before anything could come up, a hand-Coran's-slid a bucket into place between Sendak's knees. He retched, gagged again, dry-heaving violently. Shiro rubbed his back, his own gut clenching in sympathy.

It didn't sound like anything actually came up, though, and finally Sendak spat and lifted his head, peering at Shiro and Coran. His face was drawn and tight, his ears still flattened. Shiro slid his hand up to Sendak's shoulder and squeezed gently at the muscle, and Sendak all but slumped against him. Shiro leaned into it, bearing up under Sendak's weight.

"You feeling alright?" he asked.

"...Dizzy," Sendak said quietly. "My head's spinning."

"It'll pass, give it a couple minutes," Shiro said. "Sorry we weren't up here when you came out, you'd probably feel better if you'd had help then, huh."

Sendak huffed and shifted to lean against Shiro more comfortably, taking some of the weight off him, but didn't answer.

"That's odd," Coran said. Shiro looked up to find him back at the control panel, scrolling through a readout of some sort, orange brows furrowed.

"What's odd?" Shiro asked.

"Well, according to these projections, Sendak should have needed at least another varga in the pods to heal completely, but his last scans look alright, so I suppose they were off. A varga early twice in a row is a little unusual, though," Coran said. He looked up at them, and Sendak shifted a little closer to Shiro.

When Sendak spoke, though, his tone was acrid. "I heal quickly," he huffed, ears pinned back.

"Hey," Shiro said warningly, and squeezed Sendak's shoulder again. "You must be feeling better if you can pick a fight."

"Somewhat," Sendak replied, tilting his head to look at Shiro. "...Nothing a solid meal couldn't fix." Then he reached up and rubbed at his cybernetic eye, wincing. "Except for this. I think the focusing lens is broken."

On closer inspection the lens looked shattered, cracks spiderwebbing out from the right side of the cybernetic. The metal frame was crumpled slightly, and Shiro couldn't help wincing in sympathy.

"How did _that_ happen?" Shiro asked.

Sendak shot him a flat, unamused look, then said, "When the emperor of the known universe decides you need to be taught a lesson, he tends to break things."

"He _struck_ you?" Coran yelped.

"I defied him," Sendak replied. "Really, I should have anticipated it." He paused, blinked in confusion, then said, "Wait, where's my uniform?"

Coran crossed his arms. "It's being cleaned, and taking quite a while because of the dried blood at that."

The disapproving look on his face had Sendak leaning closer to Shiro, apparently for comfort, but he snapped, "Well I apologize for _bleeding_ when injured. I didn't intend to be an _inconvenience_ for you."

" _Hey_ ," Shiro said again. "Coran, is there anything onboard the Castle that will _fit_ Sendak?"

Coran tilted his head. "We do have _some_ things from before, but they may be too _big_ for him. Galra used to be...larger, back in our day."

Sendak rumbled in the back of his throat. Shiro shushed him gently. "Would you mind trying to find it? I'll keep an eye on Sendak."

"Alright," Coran said, his shoulder slumping fractionally. "I'll be back in a tick."

And then he was gone. Heavy silence fell almost immediately, and Sendak sat up and pulled away from Shiro. His ears were still flattened, face set in an almost pensive, thoughtful frown. The hairs on the back of Shiro's neck stood up. He knew when he was being studied, but he stared back firmly, refusing to give in to his discomfort. Sendak broke eye contact first, turning to look down at the floor.

"You don't need to 'keep an eye' on me," he grumbled.

"Does 'keep you company' work?" Shiro asked, offering Sendak a half-smile when the Galra turned to look at him again.

Sendak's ears perked up and swivelled towards him, and the corner of his mouth tilted up in response. "I...suppose it does," he said. His gaze was intense, and not entirely comfortable.

Shiro looked away first that time, staring across the infirmary. It looked almost as dead and empty as it had when they'd first arrived in the Castle-he was never going to get used to the emptiness, or the way the blue lights on white walls and floors cast shadows and reflections where they shouldn't have and made a space that should have been full look more deserted.

"I wanted to think you," he said, still not looking at Sendak.

"What for?" He could hear the Galra shifting his weight where he sat.

"You sacrificed yourself to protect my team when I couldn't be there for them, and you were hurt pretty badly because of it, if Coran's telling the truth. I owe you a big one, Sendak."

"You'll have plenty of opportunities to repay me," Sendak said nonchalantly. He leaned over, bumping his shoulder against Shiro's. Shiro glanced up at him and found Sendak staring back, still studying his face, apparently. His expression had softened, like he'd shed a layer of armor and exposed something raw and vulnerable to Shiro's gaze.

Shiro reached up and wrapped an arm around Sendak's shoulders, pulling him closer, and Sendak went without resistance, fitting his body as close to Shiro's as he could manage. He was shivering, Shiro realized, a faint but noticeable tremor running through him at irregular intervals. He squeezed Sendak's shoulder reassuringly. Sendak hummed in response and settled closer.

The sound of footsteps announced Coran's arrival a couple seconds before the Altean appeared in the doorway, carrying a heaping armful of red-orange and black cloth. Sendak shifted as if to put Shiro between himself and Coran, but Shiro tightened his grip on the Galra's shoulder to hold him in place.

"I'm not sure how well it will fit, but here it is," Coran said, holding out the clothes. Sendak reluctantly ducked out from under Shiro's arm and stood, brushing past Shiro to inspect Coran's offering.

They were _much_ bigger than Shiro had thought, loose, draping affairs that looked made to camouflage the lines of the body. The article Sendak had grabbed first looked like a long shirt, or maybe a tunic. The other one was clearly a pair of pants, wide-cut with drawstrings at the waist and ankles, which looked too long even for Sendak's leggy frame. Sendak inspected both thoughtfully, before turning back to Coran.

"Thank you," he said, nodding his head politely. "I appreciate you taking the time to find these for me, I'll be certain to return them in the same condition you lent them to me in."

Coran smiled at that. "Oh no, this isn't a loan. Their original owner certainly doesn't need them anymore."

Sendak's eye went wide. "These are for _me_?"

"Certainly," Coran said. "They won't fit any of the rest of us."

"I..." Sendak started. He paused, tilted his head, then said, more quietly, "...Thank you."

"You're quite welcome," Coran said. "They were on the residential floor in the main linen closet if you'd like to look through, see if there's anything else in there to your tastes." There was a pause before he added, "If you want privacy to get dressed, Shiro and I will leave you to it."

Sendak shrugged. "I don't care one way or the other, but if either of you knows where my arm is, would you mind getting it for me?"

"I've got you covered," Shiro said.

"Thank you," Sendak said, the corner of his mouth quirking up.

Shiro returned the expression and left the med bay, heading back for Green's hangar. They'd dropped the arm off there after the strike on the Hub, and as long as Pidge hadn't decided to disassemble it to see how it worked, the arm should have been right where they'd left it, tucked behind her work desk. Shiro wished he'd remembered to check when he was down earlier.

The hangar was deserted when he entered-apparently the others had left to get ready for their investigation of the coordinates Ulaz had left him. Pidge's computers hummed sleepily, but aside from that and the faint press of the Green Lion's consciousness against his own, the hangar was silent and still.

Sendak's arm was right where they'd left it, and still in one piece to boot. Shiro hefted it thoughtfully, studying the limb. He wasn't much for mechanical engineering, but it was certainly an _elegant_ piece of work-long, powerful fingers, soft rubbery padding on the palm and finger pads, dim light panels on the forearm and shoulder piece, angular Galra script engraved at the wrist. The characters looked familiar, but not enough to actually jog his memory. He couldn't remember if he'd actually learned to read Galra during his captivity or not, and it was going to bother him. He sighed and set the thought aside, slinging the arm over his shoulder and making his way back up to the infirmary.

Coran was gone when he returned, but Sendak was still there, attempting to tie off the drawstring on the waist of his pants and grumbling in frustration. Shiro snorted, loudly enough to grab Sendak's attention.

"You think this will help?" he asked, hefting the prosthetic.

Sendak flashed him a lopsided, clearly frustrated smile. "Maybe a little," he said, and made his way across the room, turning the arm to access the underside of the upper part.

His fingers found hidden buttons on the inside of the upper arm. Something hissed, and the shoulder part lifted up and out, swinging away from the main body of the prosthetic. Sendak met Shiro's gaze, then lifted the arm from Shiro's hands and fit his stump into the space inside. The light panels on the forearm blinked magenta, then settled out into a soft lavender glow as the shoulder settled back into place over Sendak's flesh-and-blood joint. He flexed his fingers thoughtfully, then closed the fist.

"I've missed having an arm that fits properly," he said softly.

"It looks like a nice one," Shiro said.

Sendak tilted his ears, eyeing Shiro, then said, "It was a gift."

His tone made Shiro tense up-something in it screamed hurt. He looked away, giving Sendak a little space, and the Galra turned away and crossed back to the shirt he'd left by the cryopods.

Well, Shiro could only assume it was supposed to be a shirt. On Sendak it was _definitely_ a sleeveless tunic, falling easily to the middle of his thighs. The red-orange fabric couldn't be more than a shade or two deeper than the color of the Galra's armor, pairing with the black pants in a way that couldn't help evoking that color scheme. At least there were no yellow eyes on the breast of the shirt, Shiro thought, more than a little relieved. Sendak scooped up something that had fallen out of the bundle of clothing-a long, black strip of some vaguely reflective fabric-and lashed it around his waist, tucking in the ends in some complex pattern Shiro couldn't follow. He tugged on the bottom edge of the tunic, then, apparently satisfied, crossed the room again and bumped his arm against Shiro's shoulder.

"So, what now?" he asked.

"Commissary first," Shiro said. "I don't know about you, but I'm starving."

"Just don't try to feed me that rancid slop again and I'm fully on board."

Shiro found himself chuckling at that. "I'll keep that in mind," he said.

"I was serious," Sendak huffed. "I'm not convinced that was _food_. It smelled like some fungal-based organism died in the engine block of an escape pod and rotted there for three cycles, then was fermented in urine for an additional cycle or so before being mashed into paste and extruded through a brand-new industrial hose still in the process of off-gassing."

"That was graphic."

"I _meant_ it. That didn't smell even remotely edible, and I'm accustomed to military rations."

"Well, don't describe it like that around Coran. He gets offended if we insult Altean food."

Shiro shot Sendak a look, and the Galra arched a brow and tilted his ears to an angle that could only be described as sarcastic. He arched his own brow. Sendak's rose higher, ears tilting more dramatically, and Shiro raised his brows higher-higher-

Sendak snorted, ducked his head and covered his mouth. His shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. Shiro couldn't help joining in, and the next thing he knew they'd slumped against each other, laughing so hard he couldn't breathe. His ribs ached like he'd been punched, and he _couldn't make himself stop_. Sendak leaned against him hard enough to almost knock him over, wheezing for breath.

"Your _face_ -" Sendak choked out, finally.

"What-" Shiro managed. He took a deep breath, then tried again. "What were your ears even _doing_?" Sendak snorted in reply, then flicked his ears emphatically. Shiro couldn't resist cracking a grin. "Come on," he said, reaching out to tug gently at Sendak's forearm. "Let's go get something to eat."

"Then what are you waiting for?" Sendak asked, brushing past Shiro and out into the hallway. Shiro hurried after him, catching up with Sendak's long stride a couple seconds later.

"Someone's impatient," he said. It took five of his strides to measure up to three of Sendak's.

"I could eat an entire _Weblum_ right now," Sendak retorted, shot him a sidelong glance, and sped up.

Shiro broke into a jog to keep pace, and only realized he'd made a mistake when the Galra flashed him a fanged grin and moved up to a lope, outstripping him easily. He growled and sped up, and Sendak matched him stride for stride. He was practically sprinting by the time they hit the elevators. Sendak wasn't even breathing heavily, and he _laughed_ at Shiro's panting once the elevator doors closed behind them. Shiro did his best to ignore it, doubling over and resting his forearms on his knees to catch his breath.

"Asshole," he muttered, more to the floor than anywhere else.

Sendak snorted. "It's not _my_ fault you decided you wanted a race," he said, and Shiro elbowed him in the hip without looking up.

"Says the guy who _started_ the race," Shiro grumbled.

"You could have chosen not to engage," Sendak retorted. Shiro pushed himself back upright and glowered at him, and Sendak blinked at him. Or maybe it was a wink. Hard to tell. Shiro settled for another elbow jab to the side and waited for the doors to open.

The kitchen was empty when they arrived. Shiro was grateful for that-it meant they got a little more downtime before facing the rest of the Paladins again. He knew they weren't happy with him, Allura especially, and depending on how things stood with Sendak, he might not be the most welcome face either. He swung open cabinets, rifling through, then opened the cold storage.

Something behind him creaked, but when Shiro glanced over his shoulder, it was only Sendak swinging himself up onto the counter. The Galra tilted his head, ears twitching towards Shiro like an interested cat.

"What?" he asked.

"Nothing," Shiro said. "It's just funny-the Alteans don't sit on counters, but humans do-and I take it Galra do too?"

"It's a better vantage point than sitting on the floor, and it wasn't like I was planning to _stand_ ," Sendak said, one corner of his mouth curling up in amusement.

Shiro snorted. "You've got a point there," he said. "So what _will_ you eat, since the green goo is off the table?"

"Anything else," Sendak replied. "What are our options?"

"...Honestly? I'm not sure. I can't read Altean."

"...Well _that's_ inconvenient." The Galra swung himself back off the counter and stooped to peer into the cold storage, apparently unfazed by the way his hip bumped against Shiro's side. "I can't read it either, so it's guesswork or starvation for us."

"Guess so," Shiro said, then glanced sidelong at Sendak. "I thought you might read Altean, I mean, you handled the Castle just fine."

"What makes you think I can _read_?" Sendak retorted.

Shiro sputtered, turning to look at him directly. "You can't _read_?" he yelped.

" _Nope_ ," Sendak replied, grinning. "Why would I need to be able to read? The ship's computer is more than capable of reading _for_ me, why would _any_ Galra need to learn to do it themself? Only less civilized species _read_ anymore."

"I...didn't know that," Shiro said, looking back into the cold storage and avoiding Sendak's gaze. Well, there were _weirder_ things for sentient species to use technology for, he supposed. Still, not being able to read… "Are you messing with me?"

"Now why would I do that?" Sendak asked mildly, reaching in to inspect a container.

Shiro let it drop, crouching to study containers on the lower levels. Judging by the oddly-colored, weirdly lumpy contents, Coran had been cooking again. He pushed them aside, wincing. The food goo was bad enough. Actual Altean food was...unappealing, to put it nicely. If he remembered correctly, Hunk had cooked before the Hub-some of that _had_ to still be in there. The other Paladins couldn't have eaten it all while he was in the cryopod, could they? Well, with some of their appetites, he couldn't say he would be surprised if they had. He glanced up at Sendak.

The Galra had pulled another container out and popped the top, sniffing at the contents with his brows furrowed thoughtfully. His cybernetic wrist was tilted up, and Shiro's eyes landed on the engraving at his wrist-

"If you can't read," Shiro said, eyeing Sendak suspiciously, "then why is there writing on your prosthetic?"

Sendak burst out laughing, setting the container down so he wouldn't drop it and rocking back on his heels. "Because I'm messing with you," he gasped out, shooting Shiro a grin. "I cannot _believe_ you fell for it."

"Asshole," Shiro said, and punched Sendak lightly in the ribs. Sendak just grinned at him, ears perked up and eye shining with glee.

"Anyway," Sendak said, turning his shoulder towards Shiro to ward off a threatened second punch, "I _believe_ this is edible? It smells edible to me."

Shiro leaned over to get a better look at the container. "I think Hunk cooked that while you were in the pod for your ribs," he said.

"Any idea what it is?"

"...He said he was 'experimenting', so...no."

"Well, did it taste alright the first time around?"

"It's Hunk, what do you think?"

"I'm going to assume that's a 'yes', then," Sendak said, picking up the container and standing. Shiro rocked back on his heels, craning his head back. He'd forgotten how improbably _massive_ Sendak looked when viewed from the floor, though he was far less intimidating without the armor and monstrous prosthetic. Sendak's head tilted, studying Shiro thoughtfully. "Is this enough for us to share, or will you pick something else for yourself?" he asked.

Shiro pushed himself to his feet and took the container, hefting it thoughtfully. "How much were you planning to eat?"

Sendak shrugged. "Maybe half," he said. "I still feel a little nauseous from the cryopod, and I have _no_ interest in throwing up once I actually have something in my system to do so with."

"Then I think there's enough to share," Shiro said. "Want me to show you how to heat it up?"

The corners of Sendak's mouth curved up in a smile, keeping his teeth hidden. "Yes please."

Shiro nodded, flashing a smile in reply, and took a step back to scan the cabinets and try to remember where the...well, he couldn't remember _what_ Coran had said the Altean name for it was, but Lance had dubbed it the _space microwave_ on their second day using the kitchen and it had stuck. The biggest problem he had with it was that whoever designed the Castle's kitchen had decided to camouflage the space microwave with the rest of the cabinets, which certainly _looked_ nicer but made it impossible to find whenever he actually wanted to _use_ it. And-there, the one slightly different handle. He tugged it open, popped the lid off the container, and placed it inside, then fumbled with the display for a couple seconds before turning back to Sendak. The Galra was back on the counter, legs crossed, watching him curiously.

"You _sure_ you can't read Altean?" he asked.

"Why would I lie about that?" Sendak retorted.

"Well, you lied about not being able to _read_ , period," Shiro said, crossing his arms.

Sendak snorted. "True. No, I cannot read Altean. My eye has a translation function, but…" he tapped the rim of the cybernetic. "Well, if I can't use it, then the translator isn't going to do either of us any good. Why do you ask?"

Shiro sighed and turned back to the space microwave. "Guess we're winging it," he said, and punched in numbers he couldn't read.

Sendak laughed behind him, sounding _entirely_ too pleased.

The first round left the contents of the container-something almost curry-like in consistency and smell once it was no longer so congealed-still unpleasantly cool, and Shiro put it back in for another round the same length. The second round left it lukewarm. Shiro put it back in for a third time and glared at the front of the space microwave.

"...So, what happened while I was in the pod?" Sendak asked.

Shiro glanced back over his shoulder. Sendak had leaned forward, elbows resting on his knees and chin cupped in his hands, ears tilted towards Shiro, his expression intense and curious. "Why do you ask?" Shiro asked, glancing back at the microwave.

Sendak shrugged slightly. "You're tense, and the rest of your team is mysteriously absent. That's enough of an indication that _something_ happened."

"Well, you're sharp for someone who just came out of cryo," Shiro said. "Something happened alright. I remembered how I escaped the Empire."

Sendak nodded. "I heard the report. Explosives in the Witch's labs, a whole wing obliterated and the entire research team and all the test subjects inside killed. Except, apparently, you."

"And the Galra who helped me escape, I think," Shiro said.

Sendak's ears twitched, perking up with interest. "Oh?"

"Yeah. He left me coordinates in my arm, a place to meet him if I survived the escape and found Voltron." The space microwave beeped, and Shiro pulled the container out, stirring the contents. "...We checked my arm and found the coordinates, and I suggested we go find him. The others...weren't happy with it."

"That sounds like _their_ problem," Sendak replied. "You need allies, and if this person is part of a group that can help, you'd be foolish _not_ to try and rendezvous with them."

Shiro snorted, portioning out the contents and passing Sendak a bowl. "That's what I said."

Sendak hummed thoughtfully. "So, _are_ we going to rendezvous, or were you outvoted?"

"We're going," Shiro replied. "They aren't happy about it, but it's worth the risk."

At that moment, almost as if they'd been invoked, Shiro heard the sounds of footsteps out in the hallway. He glanced up at Sendak for confirmation, but the Galra was more focused on his food than anything else. The footsteps were definitely getting closer, though, and there were _lots_ of them-probably everyone, if he had to guess. He looked back towards the door just as Hunk poked his head around the doorframe.

" _Told_ ya they'd be in here," he crowed, looking back down the hallway over his shoulder, then walked into the kitchen. "Hey, Sendak, you're looking better! Man, we thought you were _toast_ earlier."

Sendak looked up from his bowl, ears flattening in confusion. "... _Toast_?" he asked.

"Yeah?" Hunk said. "You know, toast."

The others were beginning to join them-Lance and Keith at almost the same time, elbowing each other in the ribs and glowering, then Coran, then Allura, eyes landing immediately on Sendak on the counter and narrowing in a scowl, and lastly Pidge, playing with something on her phone.

"I...no, I don't think that's translating correctly," Sendak replied, ears flattening further.

"He means we thought you were gonna die," Pidge said, not looking up from her phone.

"...Oh," Sendak said, ears flicking back up.

"Speaking of which," Allura said, firing the Galra a stern look, "you still owe us a proper explanation for what happened to you, and how you ended up in Zarkon's central command in time to join us when we left...and how you _escaped_."

Sendak shifted uncomfortably on the counter, ears flattening again, and shot Shiro a look. Shiro shrugged, then made a 'go ahead' gesture. Sendak took a deep breath and shut his eye, clearly gathering his thoughts and steeling himself to explain.

Then he sighed. "They caught me," he said simply. "That is, the druid did. And, seeing as I'm now a traitor to the Empire, it decided I needed to be brought to Central Command so justice could be served." A hesitation. Sendak looked away, clenching the fabric of his pants in his fists. "I would prefer not to talk about what happened between that and my...rescue. Suffice to say it was unpleasant." More hesitation. A flicker of distress crossed his face. Then he shook himself. "That isn't the important part. The important part is, we have allies inside the military, and we'll need to contact them soon."

Allura shot Shiro a look, and he returned it with eyebrows raised.

"And how do you know this?" Allura demanded, narrowing her eyes at Sendak.

"Because the person who got me out told me so," Sendak replied calmly. "He's an acquaintance of mine, a lieutenant under the high commander, and he told me he's part of a rebel organization working within and against the military. They call themselves the Blade of Marmora, and he gave me-" Sendak froze, eye going wide, and he made a grab for something at his hip that clearly wasn't there. He turned to look at Coran. "The pouch I had earlier, where is it? There were some very important things in there-"

"It's alright, settle down," Coran said. "I put it in the room we've given you on the residential floor, and I haven't touched the contents."

Sendak's shoulders slumped with relief. "Thank you," he said. "I was worried something had happened to it."

"If you want to retrieve it, your quarters are in the right hallway, the third door down," Coran said.

Sendak shook his head. "It's fine where it is. There's nothing in there I need urgently."

Allura folded her arms and stared at Shiro. "Your secret rebel Galra wouldn't happen to be called the Blade of Marmora as well, would they?" she asked, her tone suspicious.

"I don't remember," Shiro said.

"Sounds like they operate the same way," Keith said, startling them into jumping. He hopped up on the counter next to Sendak, who reached over to ruffle his hair. "Pick someone who's gonna have an impact later on to get out, stage something or use a disturbance to cover their tracks."

"Kinda like how you used those bombs back on Earth to distract the Garrison and get Shiro out, huh?" Lance asked.

"Well-yeah," Keith said. "It works."

" _Bombs_." Shiro said, raising an eyebrow. He hadn't heard _this_ version of the story. "Haven't we already talked about homemade explosives, Keith?"

"They _weren't_ molotov cocktails this time," Keith muttered, scooting closer to Sendak.

"Explosives usually work, though," Sendak said. "Anyway, what was the location from those coordinates? You didn't tell me earlier," he added, looking at Shiro, ears alert.

"The Thaldycon system," Pidge said.

Sendak hummed. "Not much out there, but it would be a good location to make contact with an enemy of the Empire. We- _they_ don't keep much of an eye on that star system." He paused, tilted his head, then added, "Though your contact may or may not be there any longer. How many movements has it been since your escape?"

Shiro felt the blood drain from his face to pool somewhere near his feet. "Almost...five, I think." He hadn't considered that. "-But we should check anyway, just to cover all our bases."

Coran sprang to his feet. "Well, then! Let's not wait around any longer!"

That led directly to a mass exodus for the bridge, almost too many bodies crushing past each other in the halls and elevators. Shiro found himself practically wedged between Allura on one side and Sendak on the other, until finally they reached the bridge and could fan out. Coran scrambled to input the coordinates, yelling back and forth with Pidge to confirm digits. The wormhole bloomed before them. Allura urged the Castle through the breach.

The place on the other side was like nothing Shiro had ever seen before. Massive crystals the size of giant asteroids hung before them, iridescent blue-green and almost delicate for their size, a sprawling belt of them as far as the viewscreens would show. The starfield beyond it looked hung with jewels, swirling with red and violet nebulae. His heart surged up into his throat. It was like an aurora made glass.

And it was desolate, for all its splendor. Empty.

"Well, this is it," Coran said. "No sign of any activity at all, living or otherwise."

"...Can we get in there to take a closer look?" Shiro asked.

"I don't want to bring the Castle any closer," Coran said. "Those xanthorium chunks contain highly unstable nitrate salts-even bumping _one_ of them could blow us straight to Wozblay."

"Are you sure this is right?"

"Well, these are the coordinates Number Five gave me," Coran said.

Pidge glowered. "Hey! My decryption is solid!"

"...There must be something we're missing," Shiro said.

"We should get out of here," Allura said. "We've checked it out, but now it's time to move on."

"There must be something more to this, I can feel it," Shiro protested.

"We're not in any more danger here than we are anywhere else," Sendak said casually. Shiro whipped around in his chair, startled. He hadn't expected the Galra to say anything. Sendak lounged against the wall next to the door, cleaning out the undersides of his claws and looking almost bored. "This system almost _never_ gets patrolled, particularly this part of it."

"But a Galra gave the coordinates-" Allura began.

"A Galra let Shiro out. A Galra was responsible for the solar barrier around Central Command going down. There's a Galra in this very room, and you don't see _me_ attacking you and using your communications to give the Empire our location," Sendak said. He shrugged, then added, "Besides, if Shiro's contact is in the area, they'll likely take some time to gauge the risks of contacting your ship before they make a move. Could be upwards of a varga before anything happens, and the risks of waiting aren't any greater here than they are anywhere else in the Empire."

"I agree with Sendak," Shiro said. "I think we should wait."

There was a quiet mutter of assent from the other Paladins, and, grudgingly, Coran. Allura scowled but backed down, leaning against one of her control podiums and looking resentful. Shiro settled in to wait.

And wait.

And wait.

And wait.

They'd been at the edge of the xanthorium field for almost two vargas when an alarm began blaring. A red warning label flashed over his work screen, and Shiro looked up, startled.

"There's an intruder in the Castle!" Coran yelped.

"How could someone just _sneak aboard the ship_!?" Lance demanded. He looked alarmed, and Shiro couldn't help seconding his question-they were in space, it shouldn't be possible.

"I _knew_ coming here was a mistake!" Allura exclaimed. When Shiro turned around to look at her, her hands were already flying across her controls, searching for something. Colored panels showing the Castle halls lit up on her screen, and a second later she said, "There he is. Level five."

Shiro pushed himself out of his seat. "Everyone, suit up."

"I don't want to startle anyone, but the intruder is Galra," Sendak said. Shiro whipped back towards him.

"How can you tell?" he demanded.

Sendak reached casually over Allura's shoulder and pulled the security footage up on the main screen. The intruder, clad all in deep grey and indigo, raced down the corridor and left the view. They were masked and hooded, making it impossible to spot any distinguishably Galra features. Shiro eyed Sendak dubiously, waiting for an explanation.

"No other species in the universe moves like a Galra," Sendak said. "I don't recognize the uniform, but I'm not wrong on this." He looked up, past the screens, and Shiro felt it the moment Sendak met his gaze. "Don't underestimate them."

"We won't," Shiro replied, and hurried from the bridge.

He'd never suited up so fast in his _life_ , and that included the simulation back in basic with the breached hull. The armor felt good. Solid. The bodysuit had been repaired while he was in cryo, he noted, but there wasn't time to test it. It had to be good enough. He slammed his helmet onto his head and booked it for the elevator.

Level five. Out.

The corridor was deserted. Something chill raced up Shiro's spine.

 _"I got him,"_ Lance declared over the comms. Shiro tensed.

"Keep eyes on him, Lance. We're all headed toward you," he said, hurrying down the hall towards Lance's location.

 _"Hold it right there!"_ Lance yelled, and Shiro sped up. He heard Lance fire his bayard over the comms.

 _"Careful!"_ Coran chimed in. _"He's faster than an angry klanmüirl!"_ More bayard firing. Lance yelped. _"Oh! But he can jump like a sprightly globinheffer!"_

 _"Coran, you're not helping!"_ Lance said, his voice overlapping with Sendak's _"They're_ Galra _, what did you_ expect _?"_

 _"_ Somebody's _as mad as a wet chüper,"_ Coran said. _"Coming your way, Number Five."_

Pidge. Shiro took the next right instead of the left he'd intended to get to Lance's location, sprinting down corridors that had seemed much shorter before his team's safety was on the line. He could already hear her grunting with effort and frustration.

 _"I got 'im!"_ Pidge ground out. A shriek, and then Pidge yelped, _"I_ don't _got 'im!"_

Coran confirmed Shiro's worst fears a second later- _"He's_ _dragging Pidge away!"_

More shouting. Shiro tuned it out, flicking on his helmet's map feature. His teammates showed up on the floor map as bright red dots, and though he couldn't see the intruder, he could guess where they were by the way Pidge's dot moved. They shot past Hunk, headed for Keith. Past Keith. Keith's dot followed at the same breakneck speed as Pidge's. Ahead. Past. Keith fell behind. Shiro hurried to cut them off.

He had to make it. He had to make it.

There. The intruder. Over seven feet tall, easily, black and grey and indigo. His team sprawled behind them. Shiro activated his prosthetic before the intruder could turn around and lunged.

His fingertips halted less than an inch from their throat. Their weapon, a long, curved knife, rested almost at his shoulder.

He glowered up at them, directly into the glowing eyes of their mask, and bared his teeth in a snarl. Neither of them moved. Sweat rolled down the back of his neck. Nothing. Stillness. He could faintly hear their ragged breathing behind the mask, over the sound of his own panting.

And then they withdrew, lowering their sword. One massive hand reached up and pushed the hood from their head. A second later the mask deactivated, seeming to shimmer out of existence, and Shiro's heart leapt directly into his throat.

They were Galra. Unquestionably. But he _knew_ that face, the white masking and pale markings on the top of that head, the longer fur on the crest, the precise points of those ears. He knew this Galra. His hand deactivated, and he lowered it slowly.

"...Ulaz?" he asked.

And then something barreled past him like a freight train, slamming Ulaz backwards, off his feet and into the nearest wall, and Shiro only realized it was Allura after she'd stopped moving.

"Who _are_ you?" she demanded. Shiro could see the fury boiling off her in waves.

"Stop! It's him!" Shiro protested, trying to push between them without touching Allura and setting her off. She whipped toward him, glowering ferociously, and Shiro forced down the part of him that wanted to quail before her wrath. "This is the Galra who set me free," he said, softer but more urgent. She had to believe him. She _had_ to.

Allura eyed him strangely but stepped back, giving Ulaz room to breathe, and Shiro turned his head to look up at the Galra. Ulaz stared back. Shiro felt pierced by his stare, riveted to the spot like a butterfly on a collector's board. All the air had gone out of the room.

And then Ulaz said, very simply, "You've come," and the oxygen returned.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** Whew! Sorry this chapter's...several months late...this chapter fought me at every turn and I ended up rewriting most of it from scratch.

* * *

"You're going to wear a hole in the floor if you keep that up," Coran said.

Aside from a slight twitch of his ears, Sendak ignored him and kept pacing, his gaze glued to the bridge doors. This wasn't right, not at all-not right that he remained on the bridge while the Paladins went to confront the intruder, not right that Allura had _ordered_ him to remain put like a disobedient foot soldier. Something churned uncomfortably in his gut. He should _never_ have pushed for them to come here-but then, he'd thought Shiro's contact would hail them like a reasonable person instead of breaking into the ship and wreaking havoc.

And here he was, stuck helplessly on the bridge, forced to listen to the fighting. _Again_. He reversed direction and passed the doors again, clenching his fists until the gears in his prosthetic whined at him in protest and his claws began biting into his palm.

A white-gloved hand planted itself in the middle of his chest, stopping him in his tracks, and he looked up from the floor and met Coran's eyes. The Altean's brows were furrowed, and Sendak quickly shifted his gaze to just over his left shoulder, avoiding his eyes entirely and lowering his ears.

"Now, what's got you all worked up?" Coran asked. His tone was mild, almost friendly, but Sendak found himself shying away from it, his ears flattening.

"...I don't think that's any of your business," Sendak bit out, looking back towards the door. Surely it couldn't take this long for _six_ of them to capture _one_ intruder, Galra or not?

"I'm worried about them too," Coran said, and Sendak jumped and glanced back at Coran. His expression had softened a bit, but somehow that made Sendak's ruff rise further in discomfort.

"Who said I'm _worried_?" he huffed, looking back at the doors again. Nothing. Not a sign. He _wasn't_ worried, was he? Surely the Paladins could handle themselves. It was just one intruder.

Then again, it had been just one intruder for Haxus, too.

"Then you won't mind if I turn the comms back on to keep an ear on our guest, will you?" Coran asked.

Sendak twitched his ears and kept his expression ambivalent. "It's your ship, I don't think I can tell you what to do on it." The thing churning in his gut seemed to speed up, curling itself in larger, more complicated knots. He grabbed his prosthetic wrist, tracing his thumb over the inscription over and over.

Haxus would have told him to take deep breaths and center himself, however he needed to do it, and Sendak could nearly picture him at his side, one small hand resting firmly on his shoulder, reminding him he wasn't on his own. He lowered his head a little and shut his eye, forcing his lungs to expand to their full capacity. His thumb traced the glyphs engraved in the metal of his wrist.

 _"-have some_ quiznakking _Galra soldier on the bridge of my ship!"_ Allura said, and Sendak snapped his head up to look around. The doors to the bridge were still shut, and he hadn't heard them come in, so Coran must have just switched the intercom on to listen in. Some of the tightness in his chest eased. So they were all alive, then-Allura wouldn't use that tone if someone had been killed or injured.

He almost didn't recognize the voice that answered her, this far removed from the context of Central Command's cybernetics lab. _"If I wanted to kill you, you'd be dead already."_ Low, deep, raspy, slow and oddly faltering.

Ulaz.

Now, that was a surprise. Last he'd seen Ulaz's name, it had been on a list of casualties from the explosion that had destroyed a wing of Haggar's labs, one that had apparently been set to cover Shiro's escape. He never would have taken the quiet, brisk surgeon for a rebel. But then again, he never would have guessed _Thace_ was one, either.

Was Ulaz the contact Thace had told him to look out for?

 _"Are your Galra threats supposed to win my trust?"_ Allura snapped back.

 _"I'm not trying to win your trust,"_ Ulaz answered, still calm. _"I am trying to win a war. And, because of Shiro, we are closer than we have ever been. Our gamble on you paid off, better than we could have imagined."_

The next voice was Shiro's, laced with urgency. _"When you released me, you also mentioned that there were others working with you."_

 _"Yes,"_ Ulaz said. _"We are called the Blade of Marmora."_

Sendak sighed quietly. On the one hand, it was almost a relief there weren't two unrelated groups of undercover Galra rebels running around. On the other, that meant he would have to talk to Ulaz about his contact with Thace at some point, and he could admit he wasn't looking forward to it.

 _"Uh, others?"_ That was Hunk, and he was _definitely_ uncomfortable. _"Are they_ here _?"_

 _"Hunk, can you try not to act so scared around the chained-up prisoner? You weren't this freaked out about Sendak."_ Lance. Sendak huffed. Typical of him.

Ulaz didn't seem to make any note of the mention of Sendak's name, because he responded directly to Hunk's question. _"I am alone on this base,"_ he said flatly.

 _"What is this 'base' you're talking about?"_ Allura demanded. _"Shiro's coordinates just led us to this_ wasteland _."_

 _"The base is hidden,"_ Ulaz said, and Sendak found himself nodding in approval. It only made sense, really, to hide a base in the xanthorium field. No sensible pilot would even _think_ about risking a cruiser in that mess. _"Now that I know it is Shiro that has come, you are welcome to our outpost. It lies dead ahead."_

 _"Behind all the xanthorium clusters?"_ Pidge asked.

 _"No,"_ said Ulaz. _"Right in front of it, in a hidden pocket of space-time."_

 _"Coran, are you hearing this?"_ Allura asked. Sendak turned toward Coran's control panel. The screen flashed, drawing a box around something in front of the largest xanthorium cluster and beeping.

"I _am_ picking up some sort of anomaly on the screen," Coran said. "I suppose it could be a cloaked base."

 _"Just fly straight for the center of the xanthorium cluster,"_ Ulaz said. _"You will see."_

 _"You think you're going to get me to destroy our ship just because you say so?"_ Allura snapped.

 _"We came out here to find some answers,"_ Shiro interjected. _"Are we going to turn back now?"_

 _"...You know I trust you, Shiro, but this doesn't feel right,"_ Keith said.

 _"And you know I hate to agree with_ Keith _, but it's a big fat ditto for me,"_ Lance chimed in.

Pidge spoke up next, but Sendak missed what she had to say because Coran turned and addressed him. "Well? What do you think?"

Sendak shrugged. "I don't know the science behind folding space or cloaking bases, so I couldn't tell you anything about that."

"And what about Ulaz?"

"I've met him before, once or twice. He's a competent surgeon and experienced in the field of cybernetics, and that's all I know about him. I never would have taken him for a spy."

Coran hummed thoughtfully. "So he could be deceiving us."

"Or he could be telling the truth," Sendak replied. "There's only one way to find out."

"Those odds aren't exactly good," Coran said.

"I've risked worse," Sendak said, shrugging. "At least death-by-xanthorium would be quick, if painful."

Over the comms, Shiro said, _"Ulaz_ freed _me. Without him, we wouldn't be here."_

Silence. Sendak tilted his head to study Coran sidelong. Coran folded his arms and gazed out at the xanthorium cluster hanging just before the prow of the ship. They waited.

At long last, Allura heaved a sigh. _"Fine,"_ she said. _"Slow and steady, Coran. Head for the xanthorium cluster."_ Her voice was slow, heavy, and Sendak could hear the grit of frustration in it.

Coran lowered his head. "...Yes, Princess," he said. "Beginning approach."

Sendak felt the kick of the thrusters turning back on in his gut, and he took a deep breath and straightened his shoulders. The xanthorium cluster loomed ever larger. The first thrill of fear gripped the back of his neck. What if they were wrong? What if Ulaz had lied?

An alarm blared.

Coran's shoulders tensed. "Impact imminent in five-"

Closer. Larger. He hadn't realized how iridescent the xanthorium clusters were.

"-Four-"

Sendak took a deep breath to steady himself, but his heart raced regardless.

"-Three-"

Closer and larger. His claws gripped his prosthetic wrist, and he winced at the way they bent on the metal.

Coran's voice rose anxiously. "-Two-"

And then it happened. Blinding white light, so bright Sendak was forced to squeeze his eye shut or be blinded. His cybernetic eye clicked and whirred and grated, trying to adjust the aperture and rubbing against the shattered lens. The brilliance on his eyelid faded and he snapped it back open immediately.

Brilliant colors whirled against a backdrop of stars that certainly hadn't been there before, a spiral of colors tunneling away from the bow of the ship into eternity.

"Gods," Sendak whispered. He wasn't certain where he'd found the voice.

"Well, that's something," said Coran. Sendak frowned, unable to help being a little put out by the Altean's nonchalance.

 _"What is it?"_ Allura asked.

"I'm putting it up on the screens," Coran replied. His hands darted nimbly across the control panel, and a second later the comms exploded with the Paladins' voices, awed and excited.

Another burst of light, too quick for Sendak to shield his eye, and by the time his vision cleared the tunnel had opened out into a wider space, still whorled with improbable colors. And there, hanging directly in the center of the space, was a base. It was smaller than any Sendak had seen before, a central hub with a torus ring, and two protruding, toothed limbs on one end-not a typical Imperial structure, by any means. The visible lighting was unusual, too, violet rather than magenta.

 _"Welcome to the Blade of Marmora, Communications Base Thaldycon,"_ Ulaz said. _"Now, if you'll free me, I need to send a message to the leadership. They need to know I've made contact with Voltron."_

 _"...Go with him, and keep an eye on him,"_ Allura said. _"I'm staying here."_

Pidge and Hunk chimed in, eagerly volunteering to go along with-Sendak guessed her order had been directed at Shiro. Lance offered to stay behind, earning an audible groan over the comms. Sendak took a deep breath to steady himself.

"Princess Allura, requesting permission to accompany the group landing on the base," he said.

 _"Denied,"_ Allura said immediately. _"You're staying here. I don't want any Galra conspiracies springing up under my nose."_

Sendak's shoulders slumped. He shot Coran a look, and the Altean returned it levelly, a flat stare that said there would be no argument. He sighed and leaned against one of the walls, doing his level best not to pout. It wouldn't get him what he wanted, and he wasn't _about_ to humiliate himself any more than he already had.

Maybe a couple doboshes later the Red Lion rocketed past the viewscreens towards the base. Allura and Lance entered the bridge almost simultaneously, and Sendak stared out the screens a little more adamantly, refusing to look at them. His fingers drummed on his cybernetic wrist. It felt like something heavy and dense had settled somewhere in his gut, setting the rest of his body alight with nerves or restless energy or _something_. He should have gone with. Staying behind was wrong, unnatural, against the proper order of the universe. He'd always gone with landing parties before, mostly on principle-it reflected poorly on a commander to send subordinates into a situation they wouldn't risk themself.

A hand landed on his shoulder, and Lance said, "Uh, are you okay, dude? You look like you're gonna hurl."

"Do I want to know what you mean by that?" Sendak asked. He turned an ear towards Lance, but didn't take his eyes off the base. The Red Lion had settled against part of it, head against an airlock to release her passengers safely. He couldn't see them passing through the Lion's mouth, but he knew they had when she shifted, settling more comfortably on the structure. The heavy thing in his gut rolled uncomfortably.

"Like you're going to throw up," Lance said.

"I will not," Sendak said, crossing his arms and staring harder.

How long was it going to take them, anyway?

Too long.

He began to pace again, Slowly at first, just a shift of his weight from one foot to the other, but then the next thing he knew he was ranging back and forth across the back of the bridge, trying to focus on keeping his breathing steady and his strides consistent and not on the coiled tension at the base of his spine.

This was bad. It was all bad.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, and he spun around to face the person who'd grabbed him. Allura glared back, thin white brows furrowed deeply and two-toned eyes narrowed to slits. "Will you stop that?" she snapped.

Sendak flattened his ears. "No."

Allura gasped. " _Excuse_ me?" she said. "Are you challenging my authority?"

"I think your _decision-making_ could do with some work," Sendak snapped, stepping back out of her reach.

And then the proximity alarm went off. Sendak's ruff rose.

Coran hurriedly pulled something up on the screen-a view of the outside universe, and something massive speeding toward them. Sendak recognized the design almost immediately, rectangular and blocky, built to hold something bigger than Voltron. He went rigid.

"Tell me that's not what I think it is," Lance said.

"You said the Galra didn't patrol this area!" Allura snapped, wheeling on Sendak.

"I said they didn't patrol it _often_ , and that is _not_ a cruiser!" Sendak snapped back. "That's one of the Witch's... _things_."

"The _witch_? Are you sure you're not making excuses?"

"Quite sure," Sendak said. "I know Emperor Zarkon had her send one to Arus, too. I didn't know there were more."

"That _Ulaz_ ," Allura growled. "He _must_ have given away our location."

The oncoming ship split open. The sides and back fell away, whirling off into the void from the force of it, leaving only the thing inside hurtling towards them, at an impressive speed for so bulky a machine. Sendak felt his gut drop through the Castle floor.

 _Consequences worse than he could imagine_ , Zarkon had told him, after Voltron wrecked his cruiser on Arus. Well, now Sendak could imagine the consequences. Because that was Prorok's face on the monstrosity speeding toward them.

"What the _cheese_?" Lance said.

Somehow, Sendak didn't think it was an appropriate time to ask what 'cheese' was. Red flashed in the corner of his eye-the Lion, peeling away from the Blade base. A panel opened up on the main screen, displaying all four Paladins.

"I _knew_ Ulaz could not be trusted," Allura said, not even giving Shiro time to finish opening his mouth.

Shiro's eyes widened, shocked, and his mouth fell open for a couple ticks as he fished for words. _"I-It wasn't him!"_ he protested.

"How can you be sure?" Allura fired back.

"It doesn't matter now," Coran said, cutting off Shiro once again and ignoring the way the Paladin's face hardened. "What should we do?"

 _"Why can't we just hide here in the space clam and wait for it to go away?"_ Hunk suggested.

Shiro shook his head slightly. _"Everyone, get to your Lions, but don't launch._ _We'll wait to see what it does. I don't want to risk fighting it if we don't have to."_

The Red Lion rounded the side of the Castle, out of view, and Lance bolted from the bridge. Sendak returned his attention to the oncoming _thing_ , closer and bigger than ever. He didn't like it. Not at all. Something about it, about the spindly, grabbing arms and the outsized mouth, set him on edge.

Pidge's voice crackled over the comms. _"We should be safe as long as we're hidden in the space pocket,"_ she said, sounding entirely too confident for Sendak's taste.

Outside, the _thing_ opened its mouth. The head split open along the hinge, revealing some sort of spiral mechanism-which also opened, emitting magenta light. Sendak tensed, claws pressing into the palm of his hand. All around the space pocket, xanthorium clusters began to move-towards the _thing_ , slowly at first but then building in speed and seeming to...shrink? The largest ones, bigger than battle cruisers, _had_ to be shrinking to fit into that gaping maw.

"It's drawing in the xanthorium clusters," Coran gasped.

Sendak shook his head, ears flattening to his skull. "You said those things contain explosive compounds. It's gathering _ammunition_."

The maw closed. The creeping edge of wrongness Sendak felt began to recede.

And then it opened again, blazing red energy across the void at them, carving a swath through the volatile crystals and it was _back_. Every inch of Sendak's fur stood on end. That great searching _thing_ knew they were there, seeking relentlessly. It would dig them out. Sendak knew Prorok's record, knew the High Commander had risen to his first real command post hunting out rebels, the Prorok- _thing_ would find them.

It was moving closer. Sendak clenched his fists until the gears on the left groaned a protest, until his claws bit through his skin on the right.

 _"I think he knows we're here,"_ Hunk said, voice trembling.

 _"Hold,"_ Shiro replied. Sendak knew the strain in his tone, the unbearable wire-tension before battle, ready to snap at the slightest pressure. He edged toward Allura's command podium, catching her eye as quickly as he could.

"Princess Allura," he said in an undertone. "Requesting permission to use the comms to communicate with the Paladins. And Ulaz," he added, almost as an afterthought.

"Why?" she demanded, eyes narrowing.

"Because I have insight on the tactic in use here that may prevent us all from being killed.

It only took Allura a tick to deliberate on that.

"Granted. Coran, let Sendak use the comms."

Coran stepped aside, and Sendak hurried to the vacated command station, pressing the comms panel.

"Hold your positions, everyone," he said, holding his tone to a calm he didn't feel as the _thing_ blasted the xanthorium field again. A different section this time, away from them.

That got a clamor of Paladins talking over each other, but Shiro's voice quickly cut through the din. "Sendak, what's going on?"

"That _thing_ is strafing. It's a common tactic for flushing out rebels-most don't have the fortitude to hold cover under fire and usually cut and run under a barrage," he said, more certain than before when the _thing_ drew in another load of xanthorium crystals.

"So how do we counter?" Shiro demanded.

"We hold our positions," Sendak replied. "Ulaz, if you can hear me, do _not_ drop the space fold or I will come over there and kill you myself before that _thing_ has the opportunity. Voltron…" he hesitated, watching the _thing_ turn further away, strafing a different part of the field. "...Wait until the _thing_ turns broadside to us, then break cover and strike. Any joint or hinge in its exterior will be a weak point, target those with whatever you've got."

"And what do you think _we_ should do?" Allura huffed. Her tone was skeptical.

"Stay put until Voltron needs backup, unless you think you have a shot," he replied dryly. "I would _prefer_ we didn't reveal our location all at once."

The _thing_ turned further, nearly to the position he wanted it.

 _"Hold…"_ Shiro said again, and something deep within Sendak quivered instinctively at his tone. Another few ticks. Then they could strike.

And then the _thing_ snapped back towards them, blasting directly at their location.

"Direct hit!" Coran called, more for the Paladin's benefit than anything else. "It definitely knows we're here."

"Get the particle barrier up," Allura commanded. Coran hurried to obey. "Paladins, I think it's time to launch!"

" _Hold your positions_!" Sendak bellowed. Ticks too late. The Lions were already in motion.

Voltron's one saving grace was its speed. The Lions combined before they even left the fold in space, slamming fist-first into the Prorok- _thing_ in time to knock its next blast askew, crystals above them exploding as the laser blast destabilized them. Sendak slammed his palm down on the comms panel, opening to all available channels.

"Ulaz, on Valkar's _breath_ I swear if you drop the space fold I will kill you in the _bloodiest_ way I can imagine," he snarled, hoping the fury in his tone came across even without the expression to go with it.

On the other end of the line, he heard Ulaz make a startled noise-probably moving to do just that and surprised to hear Sendak swearing at him over the comms. Sendak growled louder, enforcing the threat, and Ulaz swore, the sound muffled as if he'd turned away from the comms unit.

Outside the space fold, Voltron was ignoring his suggestions, smashing the _thing_ further along the ring, away from them and seemingly ignoring the jaw hinge and fragile, flailing arms. The bone-deep _wrongness_ went with it, fading rapidly with each punch and letting Sendak's frustration build to replace it.. The hand Lions switched to lasers, one-two-three, sending the _thing_ spinning. It fired back with a massive burst of red energy. Xanthorium clusters exploded. The robot was hidden by the cloud of fast-dying flame and shrapnel. It emerged, flying backwards, and the _thing_ pursued.

"Do you have any _other_ suggestions?" Allura asked snidely.

"Yes, I do," Sendak growled back, tapping the comms to focus on Voltron and unintentionally pulling up the vid channel. The Paladins' faces stared back at him, clearly startled.

 _"Sendak?"_ Lance squeaked.

"Pull out of the xanthorium field _now_ ," Sendak snarled, flattening his ears emphatically and ignoring the flinches he got in response. "You have no room to maneuver and are only allowing it to gather more ammunitions. Get to clear space _immediately_."

 _"We're on it,"_ Shiro replied. Outside, Voltron arched away, aiming for clear space. The _thing's_ maw opened, dragging them back, and Sendak found himself snarling.

"Coran, fire the Castle's blasters," Allura said, and Sendak glanced back over his shoulder at her, meeting her gaze and giving her an approving nod.

Coran fired the blaster. The _thing_ shut off its tractor beam and spun, seeking. Past their hiding space. Back towards it. Voltron fired on it-a shoulder cannon, something he hadn't seen before. The _thing_ spun back towards them, pursuing. He saw when it breached the edge of the xanthorium field, heralded by a ripple of explosions, and looked back up at Shiro's face on the screen.

"Remember what I said about attacking it?" he asked, trying to keep the growl out of his tone.

 _"Attack the joints,"_ Shiro said. _"Keith, form sword!"_

Sendak grinned at him, baring teeth, and Shiro flashed a toothy grin in reply that sent shivers down Sendak's spine. Voltron continued to retreat, luring the _thing_ after it. Sendak glanced back at Allura.

"If you want to join the fight, the Castle could easily provide a distraction. Voltron will need to close quarters, without risking being caught by the tractor beam or the arms," he said, and Allura nodded, brows furrowed.

"Right," she said, and the Castle surged forward, out of the space pocket.

The rearranged xanthorium field was rough. Each move brushed crystals against the particle barrier. The _thing_ was too distracted with Voltron to notice the explosions, at least until the Castle fired on it again. It turned, maw gaping. Voltron closed in.

The sword punched clean through the base of the arm and out the _thing's_ open mouth.

Impaled, it hovered there for a few more ticks, and Sendak thought for a moment it may have looked surprised.

And then Voltron ripped the sword free, and the _thing_ exploded into shards and shrapnel and light, just the same as the _thing_ on Arus had. Sendak let his shoulders slump, heaving a sigh of relief, and for a minute everything was quiet.

Then Lance whooped at the top of his lungs, startling everyone. Hunk joined in a second later, laughing, and the others joined in, cheering their victory. Even Allura laughed, lauding the Paladins. Sendak allowed himself a little smile and met Shiro's gaze. Shiro lifted his hand into view and raised his thumb, beaming, and Sendak wasn't entirely sure what that meant, but from Shiro's expression it had to be good. Cautiously, he raised his own thumb, and Shiro's smile widened. Yes. Good.

The comms crackled again, the connection a little grainy, but Ulaz's voice on the other end was all too clear. _"Requesting permission to dock with the Castle of Lions."_ The Paladins fell silent.

Allura didn't respond for nearly a dobosh.

"Princess?" Coran asked.

Allura took a deep breath and squared her shoulders. "Permission granted. Opening the pod bay for you now. Shiro, meet him there and escort him to the common room."

 _"Yes, Princess,"_ Shiro said.

Then she turned off the comms and snapped, "And just _what_ did you think you were doing, Sendak?"

Something hot and angry lit up in his chest, and he flattened his ears and glowered ferociously at her. "Taking control of the situation, because apparently no one _else_ was willing to or capable of taking effective action and utilizing the resources at our disposal to their fullest extent," he growled back

"I _think_ you've forgotten you're not a commander here," Allura said coolly. "This is _not_ the Galra Empire, and _we_ are not soldiers under your command."

"I am _well aware_ that I am no longer a commander," Sendak said. He took a deep breath, trying to smother his frustration back to cinders. "I am, however, angry that you wanted to employ my capabilities as a strategist but lash out when I step in to implement a plan."

"You are still barely more than a _prisoner_ ," Allura snapped. "Count yourself lucky I'm not sending you back to your cell for that."

Sendak growled softly, ruff rising. "I have just won you a great victory, and yet you would punish me for it? You Alteans are more foolish than I thought." Coran made a quiet, offended noise, but Sendak ignored it in favor of glaring at Allura. The princess held his gaze firmly, and he flattened his ears further.

Allura turned her back. "Whatever. I have more important things to do than argue with an impertinent Galra," she said, not even bothering to glance over her shoulder as she stalked towards the bridge doors. "Come on, Coran. Let us go speak with our... _guest_."

Coran fell into step behind her, shooting a glance at Sendak over his shoulder, and Sendak took a deep breath and squared his shoulders, unclenching his fists. Fury and impulse simmered in his blood like radiation.

It would be so, _so_ easy to take the Castle right now, to wait for the Alteans to leave the bridge and lock them out, to shut all entrances and flush the air from everywhere but the bridge, to fly the Castle back to Central Command...to present Zarkon with the Lions and beg his forgiveness. And with _all_ the Lions as a peace offering, Zarkon might even forgive him. He was, after all, Zarkon's favored protege, his carefully selected Red Paladin. He could do it.

No, he couldn't. Not with the _Witch_ still waiting...not with the camaraderie of shared victory still pumping in his veins. He let out a shaky breath and followed Allura and Coran off the bridge.

Ulaz was already in the common room when they arrived, seated in the couch pit beside Shiro like he belonged there. They were engaged in quiet conversation, just the two of them, but both looked up when the doors opened. Something unpleasant curdled in Sendak's gut. He did his best to ignore it. Ulaz stood and crossed the room, extending his hand to Allura. Allura clasped his forearm in greeting, and Ulaz inclined his head politely. Then he looked up and made direct eye contact with Sendak over her shoulder. Sendak flattened his ears and did his best not to edge away. At this distance Ulaz's scent was unmistakable, ash and green things, for once without the tang of the labs, and it made the thing curdling in Sendak's gut more unpleasant.

"Princess Allura," Ulaz said calmly. "We have much to discuss, I am certain."

"We most certainly do," Allura replied. There was no way to mistake the acrid scent of tension roiling off of Ulaz. Allura's scent had changed too, becoming almost metallic, and Sendak was willing to bet that was the Altean discomfort scent. It could be nothing else, considering the tense line of her shoulders. Her body language said whatever Ulaz did in the next few moments would result in one of two things: a release of tension, or Ulaz's prompt ejection from the Castle via an airlock.

Fortunately, Shiro chose that exact moment to intervene. The Paladin stood up, a slow, casual movement Sendak recognized as an indication of his own ease, and padded over to stand beside Allura, clearly stating his alliance while keeping his posture relaxed enough to diffuse Ulaz's tension.

"Ulaz, would you mind giving Allura the explanation of the Blade of Marmora's mission you gave us?" Shiro asked. "That sounds like a good place to start."

Ulaz nodded. "The Blade of Marmora exists in opposition to Zarkon's expansionist policies. Our ancestors once thought expanding the Empire would bring stability, but it quickly became apparent that stability was not Zarkon's intent. The founders of the Blade of Marmora split with the Empire, and we have worked within and against the military to slow and hamper their spread ever since," he said calmly. His gaze moved to Sendak, and Sendak felt his ruff rise. Ulaz's expression was one of condemnation.

"Then why haven't _you_ stopped him already?" Allura snapped. Shiro put his hand on her shoulder, but she shrugged him off. "Your Blade of Marmora has had _ten thousand years_ to halt Zarkon's spread, why hasn't he been stopped already?"

"The Blade of Marmora is a small organization," Ulaz replied, still eerily calm. "We are, at most, one-fifth the size of the Imperial military, and most of those numbers cannot be field agents. We do not have the power to halt him at every expanse, merely hamper his campaigns, make victories more costly than they are worth."

Again, his gaze wandered back to Sendak, and Sendak's stomach did an uncomfortable flip. Someone else had to have noticed, or he was going mad.

Someone else _had_ noticed. Shiro shifted slightly, drawing Ulaz's attention. "What do you keep looking at Sendak for?" he asked, shooting a quick glance at Sendak himself.

Ulaz's mouth quirked. "You _are_ aware he is Zarkon's most destructive agent in nearly a thousand years, correct?" he asked wryly, and Sendak scowled. "Commander Sendak is responsible for a significant amount of conquered territory, and for the destruction of numerous rebel groups both in and out of his sector."

Shiro glanced between them again, his brow furrowing. "I'm...not sure what that has to do with this. He's changed sides. Sendak works for _us_ now, not Zarkon."

That time, Ulaz made a quiet scoffing noise. "Who do you think brought that monstrosity down on us?" he asked, staring directly at Sendak.

" _Excuse_ you?" Sendak snapped, flattening his ears. "In _case_ your compatriot in Central Command failed to notify you, I've been branded a traitor to the Empire. One of the Witch's _things_ coming after me is the _last_ thing I need."

"And yet you knew its weaknesses," Ulaz countered. Sendak's ears flattened further.

Allura hummed thoughtfully. "We _did_ struggle with the last two robeasts, but this one fell _much_ more quickly than either of them…"

"You can't _possibly_ be blaming Sendak," Shiro cut in. "One of us has been with him the whole time since we told him the coordinates, there's no _way_ he could have let anyone know where we were."

"Anyone with basic knowledge of armor could tell you it's always weaker at the joints, anyway," Sendak muttered mutinously.

"And how could you have known it was using the xanthorium clusters as a weapon? Or that leaving the field would allow Voltron to get a clear strike?" Allura demanded. "You were _very_ insistent that we listen to you above all else."

"Because it was _common frexing sense_ , which _none_ of you seem to possess!" Sendak snapped back. "I'm _done_ standing here and being insulted like this." He spun on his heel and turned to stalk off.

"Only the _guilty_ run from mere accusations," Allura retorted, and Sendak turned back to face her.

"I would not be surprised," Ulaz said calmly, "if he were going to find privacy to speak to that wretched lieutenant of his and receive their next orders."

The floor dropped out from under him. _Haxus_. Sendak swayed, his stomach lurching again, and he shook his head frantically to clear it.

"Haxus is _dead_ , you skeptical, doubting bastard," he snarled. "So, no, I _cannot_ be receiving orders from him unless I am suddenly able to speak with-"

His throat closed up on the word _ghosts_ , and a quiet, distressed sound bubbled up behind it. He bit his lip and spun back around, bolting from the room. He would not cry in front of them. He would _not_. His vision blurred dizzily, and he lurched into a wall before he could right himself. Pain arched up his right shoulder. He ignored it, bolting for the room Coran had indicated was to be his and slamming the door open.

The room seemed to spin around him, and Sendak braced against the doorframe a moment, gasping. Too large, too white, too much space-his eye landed on the closet door, and he stumbled towards it, opening the door and slamming it shut behind him.

Then he dropped, his knees folding gracelessly under him and sending him crumpling to the floor in a heap. He ignored it, wedging himself into the corner and curling up, wrapping his arms around his knees. A strangled sob forced its way out of him, and then another, and he buried his face in his arms and wailed.

 _Haxus._

* * *

His head was pillowed in someone's lap, and a hand was stroking his ears. Neither the hand nor the lap were very large, and he thought for a moment he might be somewhere else, some _when_ else. Then the scent reached his nose, and his heart sank a little-too alien, but comforting nonetheless. Hints of grease, some floral thing that no doubt came from clothing, an almost _textured_ musk. The hand stroked his head again, scratching gently at the base of his ears, and the nails were trimmed and short. They felt nice anyway, rubbing over the sensitive bundles of nerves there and soothing him. He leaned up into the touch.

"Nice to see you're awake," Shiro said.

Sendak hummed in response, tilting his head a little to move Shiro's hand more to where he wanted it, the nape of his neck, and _purred_ when Shiro scratched a little harder.

"...We were kinda worried about you," Shiro said.

Sendak tilted his head enough to glance up at him, half-opening his eye. "We? Or just you?" His voice was rough, and his throat stabbed with pain-too much shouting on the bridge, too much crying, too long without something to drink.

"The Paladins and I were," Shiro said, and moved his hand back to the nape of Sendak's neck to keep scratching. Sendak purred, leaning up into his hand.

He'd almost forgotten how _nice_ it was to be touched like that.

"So how are you feeling?" Shiro asked. Sendak blinked slowly at him.

"...Headache. Throat's sore." He hesitated, ears twitching. "...Heart hurts, but I don't think you can fix that."

Shiro's breath hitched, and his hand paused on the back of Sendak's neck before beginning to card through his ruff. "...No, I don't think I can. I'm sorry."

Sendak had a feeling he meant it.

"...It will stop soon, I think," he said. _I hope_ , he meant, but he couldn't force his mouth to form the words. Shiro's other hand came up to pet his ears.

"If you...think you can sit up, I've got something for you to drink," Shiro said. "It might make your throat feel better."

Sendak rolled slowly onto his side and propped himself up on one arm, reluctant to push himself out of Shiro's lap. He only raised himself as far as Shiro's shoulder, settling his face against his upper arm. Shiro shifted to wrap his arm around Sendak's shoulders and pull him closer, and Sendak nuzzled against him, appreciating the warmth and solidity of the much-smaller body.

"Here," Shiro said, squeezing his shoulders gently to get his attention. Sendak lifted his head and found Shiro holding a mug of something steaming, offering it to him. He sat himself up a little better and took the mug carefully in both hands, breathing the scent of it. Spicy, but pleasantly so, with rich earth undertones and a hint of something sweet.

The first sip was a gods-send, sweet and spicy and soothing on his sore throat, and he sighed quietly, pleased. Shiro chuckled.

"Good?" he asked.

"Very," Sendak replied, and took another sip.

"Good," Shiro said. "...You feeling any better?"

"...Some," Sendak replied.

"Well, you'll be happy to know Ulaz left," Shiro said. "We reached a negotiation with him. The Blade of Marmora is willing to make the alliance with us, even _with_ you around, as long as we figure out how Zarkon tracked us down before we rendezvous."

"It wasn't me," Sendak said quietly. His stomach turned over again.

"I don't think it was, either," Shiro said, then huffed something that might have been a laugh. "I trust you. Against _all_ the odds, I trust you. That's why I got Ulaz to agree to let us find out how we got caught instead of just throwing you out, like Allura wanted. We'll figure out how Zarkon tracked us, and we'll fix it. Together."

Sendak tilted his head, studying him, then nodded. "Yes. Together."


	5. Chapter 5

**A/N:** Whoops! I had this chapter finished last week, and then...I forgot to post it over here too. I apologize, and I also apologize for the chapter itself. I cried writing it, and I'm sorry to inflict it on you.

Secondly: this chapter comes with a big ol' **trigger warning** for ritualistic **self-harm**. If you need to skip it, the section beginswith _It was only fitting, then, that he make the last offering with it._ and ends with _He let several doboshes pass, then wiped his knife clean on his_ tunic...

* * *

One varga and two mugs later, Sendak trailed Shiro into the kitchen. He felt nearly recovered-his head had stopped aching halfway through the first mug, and the drink had soothed his sore throat, though his heart still felt heavy in his chest and he found himself scanning the halls uncertainly, alert for the first flash of Allura's pale hair or clothing. Just the knowledge that she had been eager to be rid of him on the word of a near-stranger tied his innards in knots he couldn't quite detangle, and he stuck to Shiro like a second shadow for the security of the human's presence.

He wasn't quite sure when Shiro had transitioned from tenuous ally to protector, but something about it made the space behind his sternum feel warm and full of light for the first time since he'd woken in the Castle med bay.

The kitchen was quiet, which Sendak took as a small mercy; all four of the other Paladins were present, but for once quiet, oddly subdued. Keith, Lance, and Pidge clustered at the central counter, nursing mugs of the same drink Shiro had brought him, and hardly acknowledged his and Shiro's entrance. Hunk stood over the stove, stirring something in a broad-bottomed pan, but when he looked up he broke into a grin and turned down a dial, setting down his spatula and leaning against the counter.

" _So_ ….how'd it go?" he asked.

Sendak glanced at Shiro, tilting his head quizzically, and Shiro shrugged a little and turned back to Hunk. "How'd... _what_ go?" Shiro asked.

"You know, the talk with Ulaz?" Hunk asked. "Allura sure seemed pissed about it, but she didn't really _say_ anything either, so…"

Shiro glanced back at Sendak, eyes wide. Sendak shrugged.

"It was…" Shiro started, then hesitated. "...Not as easy as it could have been. We got an arrangement worked out with him, but I don't think any of us were really happy with it. It's a tough compromise." He glanced back at Sendak again, and Sendak forced a half-smile, trying to reassure him. Shiro smiled back, but it didn't touch his eyes.

"...Oh," Hunk said, his shoulders slumping a little. Then he looked over Shiro's shoulder at Sendak, a startled expression crossing his face. "Dude, you look _terrible_."

"Thanks," Sendak replied, wincing a little at the residual hoarseness in his voice.

Hunk frowned sympathetically and turned back to the stove, giving his pan a quick stir before grabbing the other thing on the stove, a tall pot with some sort of curving spout on it and holding his hand out for Sendak's mug. Sendak handed it over, almost hesitant and careful to keep his hand from touching Hunk's, not that the Paladin seemed to notice-he was too intent on pouring a steady stream of reddish liquid from the pot into the mug. He handed the mug back once it was full, and Sendak accepted it with a quiet nod, padding over to the counter and settling himself down beside Keith. Keith looked up from his mug at that, studying Sendak from under his bangs, and Sendak did his best to keep his ruff from rising uncomfortably.

"...You alright?" Keith asked.

Sendak hesitated a moment before answering, his ears twitching uncertainly as the knots in his gut tied themselves ever tighter. "...I've had worse," he answered at last.

"Allura said you ran out halfway through the meeting," Lance said.

"Allura decided Ulaz was right when he called me a double agent," Sendak muttered back, scowling down at his drink.

"Well…" Pidge started, and Sendak raised his head to look at her. "...Are you?"

" _Pidge_ ," Shiro said, his tone verging on a warning.

"It's fine," Sendak said, meeting Shiro's gaze. "You don't need to defend me." He glanced back at Pidge, flattening his ears a little. "No, I am _not_ a double agent. Emperor Zarkon declared me a traitor in front of all of high command and handed me over to his _witch_ to try and torture what knowledge I had of you out of me, give me _one_ good reason why I would spy for him after that."

 _That_ got an immediate reaction. Keith slammed his mug down and spun to look at him, dark eyes wide with shock, Lance squawked a " _what?"_ at top volume and stood up hastily, his chair screeching on the floor, Hunk dropped his spatula with a clatter. Neither Shiro nor Pidge reacted audibly, but the smallest Paladin leaned further over the counter to stare at him, and he saw Shiro tense out of the corner of his eye. He looked away, ears flattening against his head, every inch of him burning under their stares.

"They _tortured_ you?" Lance yelped.

"Why didn't you say anything?" Hunk asked, sounding concerned.

Sendak turned his gaze to the floor, refusing to look up. "...None of you needed to know," he said. "Things that happen to me are none of your concern."

A hand landed on his shoulder. Sendak did his best not to flinch from the contact, then looked up, meeting Shiro's eyes. He looked away quickly, redirecting his gaze over Shiro's shoulder, but the damage had been done.

"I know you're probably not used to operating like this, but you're part of a team now, and people on a team look out for each other. But we can't do that if you won't tell us something's wrong," Shiro said. His tone was gentle, too gentle, and something in Sendak recoiled from it. It had been fine in his quarters, but in public, in front of the Paladins-

Too intimate. Too vulnerable. He took a deep breath, trying to steel himself, and narrowed his eye, meeting Shiro's eyes again.

"It's bold of you to assume there's something wrong," he said, not bothering to keep the bite out of his voice. "I've had worse than anything the Witch could have dealt me in so little time, and I do _not_ need to be coddled like a child over it."

Silence. Then Shiro reached up and pinched the bridge of his nose, squeezing his eyes shut, his expression frustrated. "Fine. Whatever you say, Sendak."

Sendak lowered his ears and looked away. No point in trying to press an argument, he'd gotten what he wanted-Shiro had relented, letting him nurse his drink and his emotional wounds in peace. A sidelong glance showed the other Paladins looking away from the two of them, their body language varying shades of discomfort, and he sighed, fighting to keep his shoulders from curling in defensively. No need to expose further weakness to them, and gods knew he was barely hiding it now. Ulaz had shattered his defenses. His throat felt tight again, and he swallowed hard, trying to drive it off. Shiro was still staring at him, his brow creased, and he could feel the question in the human's look. Of course Shiro would question it, the sudden snap between his vulnerability when they had been alone and his defensiveness in public had to be jarring, and something that might have been guilt jabbed at his chest. It wasn't fair to Shiro, not in the slightest, and he hesitated, then stood.

"Shiro, may I speak with you?" he asked. Shiro looked startled, and he could _feel_ the younger Paladins looking at them. "...In private," he added, turning to shoot them a look. Four sets of eyes quickly turned away from them again.

"...Sure," Shiro said, his brows furrowing again, but he followed Sendak out of the kitchen without complaint.

Sendak kept his silence all the way down to the common room, all but collapsing into the couch pit. He felt Shiro settle down on the cushion, out of reach but near enough to talk. Sendak stayed quiet, looking anywhere but the human, and for a while, both of them were still.

"...Okay, so what's going on?" Shiro asked at last, breaking the silence.

Sendak sighed and let his shoulders slump. "...I apologize for snapping at you," he said. "I was...out of line there, it will not happen again."

"That's not what I meant," Shiro replied, and Sendak heard him scoot closer. "Look, if you need a break to get your head on straight, I understand. You've been through a lot in the last couple days, it's okay if you need to take a little time for yourself."

"...I don't know what I need," Sendak said quietly. "You aren't wrong, a lot has happened in the last few days, but…" He sighed, then started again. "It feels as if everything has collapsed, all at once. I'm...unmoored. I don't know what I should do."

Another quiet shift, and then Shiro said, "Can I touch you?"

Sendak hesitated a moment, then nodded, and Shiro set a hand on his forearm. He looked up at last, meeting the Paladin's eyes for a moment, then looked away, unable to bear the concern in his expression.

"Is there anything we can do to help?" Shiro asked quietly, and Sendak hesitated again.

"...I don't know," he said. "There is...something I _must_ do, but…" He bit his lip, squeezed his eye shut to steel himself again. "...But I don't know if I'm strong enough."

Shiro squeezed his arm reassuringly. "Tell me how I can help you," he said.

Sendak turned slowly back towards him, tilting his ears up and studying Shiro's face, and something tight behind his sternum eased a little. Shiro's expression was intense, but his eyes were warm. He took a deep, slow breath, then, carefully, rested his hand on Shiro's.

"...I need to speak to Coran," he said, feeling almost childishly hesitant. "...About Haxus."

Shiro winced a little at that. "...Alright. Come on, I'll help you find him."

They found Coran on one of the unused floors, seated on the floor with a box of tools and what looked like a disassembled cleaning drone spread out around him and tinkering with a complicated motor piece. He looked up at the sound of their footsteps, his eyes lighting up and his moustache twitching as he smiled.

"Nice to see you two up and about," he said, and Sendak felt taken aback by his chipper tone. "Why, I thought you might have decided to take the rest of the quintant off, after that business with Ulaz!"

"We thought about it," Shiro said wryly. He nudged Sendak with his shoulder and led him around the cleaning drone to sit cross-legged on the floor across from the Altean. "Sendak said he had something he needed to ask you about." That was said in a softer tone, and came accompanied by Shiro taking Sendak's organic hand in his own and giving it a reassuring squeeze, which Sendak reciprocated almost instinctively.

"Oh?" Coran asked, turning to look at him. His two-toned eyes softened. "Well, ask away. I'll answer what I can."

Sendak took a deep breath and glanced at Shiro, knowing it was foolish but seeking reassurance anyway. Shiro met his gaze evenly and squeezed his hand again.

"...I need to know what happened to Haxus's body," he said quietly. His ears lowered, almost against his will.

Coran's ears lowered too, his expression becoming sad. "...I'm sorry, Sendak," he said quietly. "We didn't even know he'd existed until the other quintant, when Pidge admitted it, and after three movements…"

Sendak cringed, bile rising in the back of his throat, and he released Shiro's hand to dig his claws into his palm. _Three movements_ of decay after a shattering fall...he didn't even want to imagine Haxus in that state, and yet-

"Now wait just a tick, you didn't let me finish," Coran said gently, and someone-Shiro-uncurled his hand from its fist, removing his claws from the skin of his palm. "Pidge said he fell down the central turbine's shaft, and when the Castle's thrusters ignite, the turbines vent excess heat through that shaft. When I went down to check, all I found was a few charred bits of metal that _might_ have been part of his uniform-his body would have been incinerated on takeoff. I'm so sorry-"

"Don't be," Sendak said, cutting him off, giving a quiet sigh of relief. Tension he hadn't realized he'd been holding left his shoulders. "It's better like that. We burn our dead-I didn't-I'm glad he wasn't left down there for movements on end. It...hurt to picture that."

"Oh," Coran said, sounding a little taken aback. "I-well, alright, then. Is that all you wanted to know, or-"

"No," Sendak said, scrambling back to his feet. Shiro lurched back, then sprang up as well, and Coran set aside his tools and stood. "I-I need those pieces of his armor, and I need access to that room and something to burn."

" _What_?" Coran yelped, staring at him like he'd gone mad. And perhaps he had-Sendak could feel something lighting up inside him again, something stubborn and singularly focused.

"I need the pieces of his armor you found at the bottom of the shaft," he repeated. "And I need access to the place where he fell, and something to burn. I couldn't protect Haxus in life, and I couldn't make sure his body was properly taken care of, but…...I _can_ do his final rites, to...to make sure he moves on, so his energy isn't trapped on this plane. _Please_."

Coran looked at Shiro, who shrugged a little. "...I don't see why we shouldn't let him," he said. "If you were in his shoes, wouldn't you want to…"

Shiro trailed off, but Coran nodded, understanding. "Alright," he said quietly. "Come on, Sendak. I brought what I found up from the bottom of the shaft, it's in my grandfather's old workroom. There should be _something_ in there you can burn, and I can give you access to the central turbine."

Sendak nodded. "And...one more thing. _Please_ don't tell Allura."

Coran exchanged a startled look with Shiro, who, again, shrugged.

"I don't see why the princess would need to know," the Altean conceded. "Come on. Let's go get you your friend's armor."

Coran led the way out of the room, back towards one of the elevators, and Sendak dropped back a few steps to walk beside Shiro, leaning down to speak with him, hopefully quietly enough that Coran wouldn't hear him.

"Shiro," he said softly. "May I ask one more favor of you?"

"...Sure," Shiro replied, equally quiet.

Sendak hesitated a moment, then took a deep breath and forged ahead. "I need you to wait for me to come out," he said simply. "Funeral rites are...often taxing, and I may need...assistance when I finish."

He was prepared to add a plea or an offer of some favor onto the end, but Shiro cut him off. "Don't worry," he said quietly. "I'll be there."

"Thank you," Sendak said, his shoulders slumping with relief.

Shiro leaned over and bumped him lightly with his shoulder, offering him a closed-lipped smile. "I said I'd help, didn't I?" he asked. "Whatever you need me to do, I'll be there for you when you're done."

* * *

Less than an hour later, Sendak stepped into the central turbine and let the door slide shit behind him, and closed his eye to gather his strength. In his hands, wrapped in white cloth and cradled delicately as a newborn, were the shards of Haxus's breastplate-he hadn't even recognized it as such when Coran handed the melted, twisted pieces of metal over to him, the vented heat had mangled it so badly. He reopened his eye and focused it on the control panel at the end of the catwalk, trying to dispel the image of Haxus standing in front of it, and strode down until he stood in Haxus's place, then turned aside to gaze over the edge. The drop tugged at him, even as he forced himself to stay well back from it.

It wouldn't do to follow Haxus over the edge. Not when that would leave the pair of them without anyone to do their final rites.

He sat down a stride away from the edge and placed the cloth-wrapped bundle on the catwalk before him, then surrounded it with the thin staves of pale-colored, woody substance Coran had given him in the ancient workroom. The Altean had said they would burn long and well, and that was exactly what he needed them to do. The pyre arranged, Sendak paused a moment to consider it and launched into the first lament.

The words rolled out automatically- _first fire of the universe, hands of the gods_ -and he let himself detach from it, take a step back from the song rising from his throat, from the ache in his chest. How many crewmates had he done this for? It should have been so easy by now. Second nature. Often a body to burn after a battle, so many bundles of ash to send home to families. His own hands, caked in it from maintaining the pyres for days on end.

It was never supposed to be Haxus.

His voice cracked. He pushed through it, singing louder, forcing the high notes out strong and pure.

Haxus had always loved it when he sang.

He finished the first lament and bowed his head a moment, covering his mouth with his hands to choke back his grief. His eye squeezed shut again, and he found himself biting at his lip. No crying. Not til this was finished. He reached into a cleverly concealed pocket in his pants and pulled out several small objects, then reached into his boot and tugged his knife from its concealed sheath and laid them all out in an arc between him and the pyre.

And then he spoke.

"...Please, forgive me my tardiness. I know I'm late, perhaps too late...I came as soon as I could." He wasn't sure who he was addressing-the gods, Haxus, himself-the words spilled out, water from a broken dam. "...Too late, and too little. As usual... _gods_ , please...let this be enough. I have no more to give."

His hands dropped back to the objects before him-to the offerings. If this was a proper funeral pyre, he would have had more, better things, things Haxus had treasured in life to send with him into the next-he choked back another sob. Almost everything they'd possessed had gone down with the cruiser, what of it that hadn't been stored at Haxus's family home, beyond his reach now. His prosthetic fingers bumped against the leftmost, the last packet of rations from the crashed escape pod. He'd tucked it into his armor before they'd stormed the Castle, just in case they needed it once they were off-planet. He lifted the packet, the packaging rustling against his fingers, and was glad his prosthetic wasn't sensitive enough to truly feel it.

Before he could hesitate, he cast it into the flames. They sprang up immediately, consuming the packet in moments.

"Haxus, I'm sorry. I know you _hated_ those...if I'd had a chance, I'd have stolen you something from their kitchen-you deserve better offerings than this."

Food offering first, that was traditional-one part last meal, one part gift of energy to the soul of the deceased, so they would have the strength to rejoin the great flow of the cosmos. His hand landed on the next object, the computer chip from the bracer on his armor. Haxus had walked him through reprogramming it, once. Twenty years ago, now. He could still feel Haxus leaning against his shoulder, reaching over him to tap at the holopad and explaining the steps, could picture those long, skilled fingers darting back and forth.

He snapped the chip in half and dropped it into the pyre. It dropped through the fire, smoldering gently as it settled against the glowing shards of Haxus's breastplate.

"...I wish I'd had something you made to offer here. You were always…" His voice cracked painfully. "...Always tinkering with _something_...I never understood it. I wish...I _should_ give you this arm you made me, instead of some...some mass-produced, soulless thing...but I…"

His organic hand moved to his prosthetic wrist, tracing over the script. _By this alone have we existed…_

His voice firmed up a little. "But I need this. _Gods_ , I wish I could join you...you'd be _furious_ with me if I followed you so quickly...and I'm not ready to die. Not yet. So I'll keep this arm, until I can see you again."

The only offering left before him was the knife, at his right hand. Once more, he reached down with his prosthetic and lifted it, turning the blade over and over, watching the way the metal caught the light. Very, very few soldiers kept metal knives-energy weapons were often more practical and more effective, but he'd always loved solid steel in his hand. It had been a gift, long before he'd assumed command; Haxus always _knew_ when something caught his eye.

It was only fitting, then, that he make the last offering with it.

He raised the knife and rolled up his right sleeve, studying his arm pensively. Blood offerings weren't common or necessary, but…

"Forgive me, Haxus," he whispered. "I have nothing left to offer for you…"

And he brought the knife down across his arm, just above his wrist, and barely felt the pain. Blood beaded in the cut immediately, a thin line of blue, a sapphire bracelet. He held the knife and his arm over the flames, letting his blood drip. The fire hissed and snapped, sparks leaping for him, but he held steady. His fur wouldn't catch. He knew this.

He let several doboshes pass, then wiped his knife clean on his tunic and resheathed it. Then he pressed the wound against it as well, bunching the fabric against his wrist to staunch the bleeding. It wasn't heavy enough to be much concern, certainly not life-threatening, but lightheadedness wouldn't serve him during the vigil. He tilted his face up, gazing at the ceiling a moment, then let his eye fall shut.

"Gods, please...I have nothing else to offer, no more to give...this is all I can do. Please, I beg you-guide his path, let him find his way safe to whatever awaits us. Help me keep him in my heart and hold his memory true…" His voice cracked again. "And let me find my way back to him, when my own time comes. Please, let this...let this not be the end."

A sob shook him, and he dashed the tears away before they could fall. This was not the time, or the place. Not yet. Not until he finished the vigil, not until the pyre burned out. He could not dishonor Haxus, not when he'd already failed him so many times over.

He took a deep breath and began the second lament.

* * *

Shiro leaned against the wall across from the door to the central turbine, going over some of the data he and Allura had ripped from the cruiser during that disastrous strike on the hub. He was a bit relieved they finally had time to go over it. So much had happened in so little time, they hadn't even gotten a chance to analyse the intel they'd fought so hard for. As far as he could tell, the data chunk he had was a log of the cruiser's previous destinations-a quintessence-gathering operation somewhere else in the sector, a stop at the Balmera maybe a week before they'd liberated, a brief in-vacuum rendezvous with another cruiser that, as far as he could tell, had been to replenish fuel supplies and bring on crew to take to the hub and transfer out...somewhere else, the term didn't translate properly, leaving him with what looked like a phonetic transcription of the Galra word. Interesting, and the coordinates and designation of the other ship might be handy at some point, but not exactly strategically important.

Of course, very little of it was useful without someone who had context for the subjects of the report. He looked up at the door again, then checked the timekeeper on the datapad. Pidge had reprogrammed it to human time, for his and the other Paladins' convenience, and as far as he could tell, Sendak had been in the central turbine for almost three hours. Shiro couldn't deny a little impatience with the Galra, but he was trying not to get too aggressive with it. Sendak was grieving. It was only natural he'd take his time to do it, Shiro couldn't fault him on that. If Matt and Sam Holt were dead...or if one of his Paladins were killed…he didn't want to imagine what Sendak must be going through.

If he listened very closely, he could still hear Sendak's voice through the doors. He couldn't help being a little surprised Sendak was still speaking-or singing, he wasn't sure which-his voice had been pretty hoarse earlier, and for how often Sendak's voice had reached him over the last couple hours, it was impressive he hadn't lost it entirely.

On the other side of the door, Sendak's voice went quiet again, and Shiro lowered his eyes back to the datapad and shot Pidge a message, requesting another data packet for analysis. The first three times Sendak had gone silent he'd closed the datapad down, expecting Sendak to come out, but he'd stayed in there and within twenty minutes or so he'd start singing or speaking again. That silence didn't mean he was any closer to emerging. The icon in the top corner of his screen blinked-Pidge had sent him the requested data packet, and a message.

 _u ok?_

Shiro couldn't help smiling as he messaged back. _I'm fine. still waiting._

Pidge fired back immediately- _better tell him 2 hurry up_

Shiro sighed, started to text _I can't exactly rush a funeral, Pidge_ , and then deleted it. No point telling her when, hopefully, it would be over soon. He and Coran had decided to keep it between the two of them and Sendak, let the Galra have a little privacy and keep the kids and Allura from bothering him or stopping him from doing what needed to be done. He'd only mentioned he was helping Sendak with something so Pidge would let him make use of the wait to get their data analysed. They had _way_ too much sitting around unsifted, thanks to the downloads from both the hub and the cruiser, and what little Pidge had harvested from Sendak's cruiser that hadn't already been sorted through, and the disorganized and incomplete prison records Ulaz had given them before they parted ways. Hopefully they'd get the downtime to sort through it all and let Sendak cross-reference it for relevant information sometime soon.

The door beeped. Shiro jumped, fumbling with his datapad, and barely got it shut off as Sendak stumbled out, tucking it away in one of his fanny packs. He looked up and started to greet Sendak, but the words died on his lips.

Sendak was a mess. The Galra's head hung low, shoulders slumped with exhaustion, his ears drooping. His eye was wide but vacant, his expression startling and empty. His pants were dusted with what looked like some sort of white powder, at least until he got closer and Shiro caught the smell of smoke clinging to him. His right hand was fisted in the fabric of his tunic, the cloth around it hanging heavily and so saturated with his blood it was nearly purple; his left hand held a bundle of black cloth like something priceless and delicate. Sendak lifted his head enough to meet Shiro's eyes, then let it drop again. His broad shoulders curled inward defensively, and Shiro took a deep breath and stepped forward, reaching up to rest a hand on Sendak's upper arm.

"...Hey," he said gently. "Come on. Let's get you back to your room and get this cleaned up."

Sendak didn't respond, but his ears flicked towards Shiro and he went without resistance when Shiro guided him back towards the elevator. He stayed silent the whole ride up to the residential floor and all the way back to his quarters, and Shiro couldn't help being a little grateful for that. He could hear some of the Paladins in the common room, and he had a feeling Sendak wouldn't want to be seen in his current state. The door opened without a fuss, and Shiro let Sendak to the bed and put his hands on his shoulders, applying just enough pressure that the Galra sank down without resistance.

"Can I see your hand?" he asked gently.

Sendak recoiled immediately, the first dramatic move he'd made-flinching back from Shiro and clutching the bundle in his right hand to his chest protectively, his eye narrowing. Shiro hesitated, then settled onto the bed at his right side, petting Sendak's knee in what he hoped was a soothing manner.

"It's alright, Sendak. I'm not going to take it away from you," he said quietly, then moved his hand up to the back of Sendak's, running his thumb over his knuckles, the fur rubbing against his callouses. "I want to make sure this hand gets taken care of. You're bleeding a lot, I don't want you to lose too much blood or have it get infected. Is that alright?"

A pause. Sendak's ears tilted up towards him, his expression softening slightly. Then he released his grip on his tunic, turning his hand over so Shiro could see his wrist.

Shiro winced. Sendak's arm was caked with drying blood, crusting the fur between the pads on his palm, his wrist, his fingers, still beading up sluggishly from a thin gash just above the exposed veins and tendons in his wrist. The white ash from his pants had caught and stuck in his damp, tacky fur, too, and Shiro sighed and stood up.

"I'm gonna go get the first aid from the bathroom, okay?" Shiro wasn't expecting a response, but when he moved away Sendak reached out and grabbed his hand with his bloodied one. He sighed quietly and took Sendak's hand, gently removing it and setting it back in his lap. "Hey, it's okay. I'm just going into your bathroom to get the first aid kit. I'll be back in a minute, I promise. It's okay."

Sendak's shoulders relaxed slightly, and Shiro straightened up, turning towards the bathroom. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Sendak's ears swivel to follow him, but he put it aside a moment to duck into the en suite bathroom and counted himself lucky when it turned out the first aid kit in Sendak's room was in the same place as in his own, in the cabinet under the sink. He retrieved it quickly and hurried back to Sendak, opening up the kit and quickly pulling out one of the wipes, then started cleaning the dried blood away. He started further down at Sendak's fingers, far enough away from the wound to give Sendak time to get used to being touched and relax a little.

Sendak flinched when the wipe-the second one, since the first one had quickly been too dirty to do much good-reached the cut, gasping with startled pain and almost jerking his hand away. Shiro crooned wordlessly at him and petted his wrist, like he was soothing a wounded, frightened animal, and the Galra slowly relaxed again, letting Shiro clean the gash and the little bit of blood that had smeared above the wound. Shiro set the wipe aside and reached back into the first aid kit, pulling out something that almost reminded him of a toothpaste tube. Coran had told him a while back that that particular one was for closing cuts-one part antibacterial gel, one part adhesive to keep the edges of the wound together and prevent anything else from getting in.

"This might sting a little," he said warningly, meeting Sendak's gaze a moment. "Just hold still a second, I'll try to be quick. Okay?"

The Galra remained silent, and Shiro squeezed his hand reassuringly before dabbing the gel on the edges of the cut and pressing it closed. Sendak whined above him, his hand clenching into a fist, but he didn't pull away. Shiro took a moment to spread the gel flat across the now-closed surface of the wound, then grabbed a pad and a length of bandage out of the first aid kid, pressed the pad flat over the cut, and wrapped the bandage around Sendak's wrist.

"Just in case," he said, tucking the ends in neatly. "I'm not expecting it to reopen on you, but if it does, that should keep you from bleeding all over your bed."

"...Thank you," Sendak replied.

Shiro froze, startled-he hadn't been expecting Sendak to say anything-and straightened up to look Sendak in the eye. Sendak's ears were lowered, his expression tight and painful, but he took a deep breath and repeated himself.

"Thank you. I…" A hesitation. Sendak's ears twitched. "...I wasn't sure you would…"

"I said I would help, didn't I?" Shiro asked gently.

Sendak's eye went wide. His lower lip quivered, ears drooping further, and then abruptly he crumpled forward, crashing face-first into Shiro's chest. Shiro dropped a hand behind him to brace them both and wrapped the other arm around Sendak's head, holding him close and trying to steady him. Sendak heaved, his whole body trembling, then gave a dry, aching sob. And then another, and another, and within the minute Shiro felt the dampness through his shirt. He shifted slightly, bracing with his body, and wrapped his other arm around Sendak's shoulders, rubbing his upper back and murmuring soothingly at him, trying to comfort him as Sendak shook and cried in his arms.

Eventually, though, Sendak fell quiet. His shaking eased, tapering off to the occasional tremor, and he nuzzled against Shiro's chest, shifting his face out of the damp patch. Shiro adjusted his grip again, reaching up to pet the bases of his ears-Sendak had purred the last time he'd touched there, it seemed worth the shot to try again. Sure enough, Sendak relaxed against him, not purring but much less tense than before. Shiro hummed quietly, almost mimicking a purr, and Sendak nuzzled his chest a little harder before tilting his head up to look at him.

"Hey," Shiro said gently, focusing his efforts behind Sendak's right ear. Sendak's eye fell closed momentarily, and he leaned into the petting. "Feeling better?"

"...Yes," Sendak said. He sat up a little, just enough to settle his face more comfortably against Shiro's shoulder without pulling away. "...Thank you. I needed that."

Shiro's mouth quirked up into a wry half-smile, and he leaned down and rested his cheek against the top of Sendak's head. "...I could tell. You look wrecked."

Sendak took a moment, probably letting that translate, then leaned up, pressing his head against Shiro's cheek. "...I feel wrecked. I just...I can't believe he's _gone_. Not Haxus. It shouldn't have been Haxus. I-" Sendak sat up abruptly, pulling away from Shiro. He still had the little black bundle clutched in his prosthetic hand, held against his chest. "...He was my dearest friend. I keep...turning, and expecting him to be beside me. And he's _gone_."

It hit Shiro, in that moment, what was in the bundle. He pulled Sendak against him immediately, letting the Galra press his face into the crook of his neck and rubbing his back gently.

"I'm sorry," he murmured, squeezing Sendak's shoulder. "I'm so sorry. I wish we could undo it."

Sendak sighed, the sound choked and painful. "...Don't apologize. He knew the risk we were taking. I just...never expected to lose him and survive it." Another sigh. "Haxus was...one of the most tenacious people I know. He was always so...stubborn, so determined...I always thought...he just wasn't the sort of person who _died_ , you know?"

"I know," Shiro said. He did, really-he'd met several people who were too vital, too _alive_ to die. Sendak curled a little closer to him.

"...I don't know what I'm going to do without him," Sendak said quietly. A pause, and then he said, "...I don't know what I'm _doing_ anymore. Everything...my whole _life_ just...and I can't go _back_ , Zarkon called me a traitor-" Sendak sobbed quietly, and Shiro felt his eyelashes flutter against his neck as Sendak squeezed his eye shut. "...I can't ever go _home_ again…" Sendak said, his voice choked.

Shiro tightened his grip, pulling Sendak closer. "...I'm sorry, Sendak," he said. "I...don't know what to say. Or what I can do to help you."

Sendak sighed. "...This is...enough. I just...I need to get my bearings, figure out...what I'm going to do now." Another sigh. "...I know what I _can't_ do, at least."

"...What can't you do?" Shiro asked.

"Run," Sendak replied. "Even if Allura would allow me to take a pod and leave, we're in the middle of Imperial territory. I couldn't possibly run far enough to get away, or stay off their radar long enough to pass the expansion edge and get out of controlled space."

Shiro winced. "...Well, until you figure out what you want to do, you'll have a place here with us, alright? I think that's the least we can do, after everything we've done to you."

"...Thank you," Sendak said quietly, tilting his head to peer up at Shiro, then shifting like he wanted to pull away.

Shiro let him, pausing a long moment to look Sendak over. Some of the life was back in his face, in his posture, his ears much more alert than they'd been before. He was still a blood-splattered, ash-covered, tearstained mess, though, and Shiro reached up unthinkingly to wipe some of the moisture from beneath Sendak's eye.

"C'mon," he said gently. "You probably don't want to sleep in those clothes. Let's get them off you."

Sendak nodded wordlessly, placing the bundle of Haxus's ashes aside before fumbling with his sash. Shiro helped him pull off his ruined tunic, letting him handle his pants on his own, then ducked back into the bathroom to grab a damp washcloth and gently dabbing at the tear tracks on Sendak's face. The Galra allowed it, tilting his head to give Shiro better access and closing his eye. Once they finished Sendak sank back on the mattress, every line of his body screaming exhaustion. Shiro resisted the urge to reach down and pet his ears, instead standing up.

"I'll go get you some more blankets, okay?" he asked.

Sendak nodded, and Shiro ducked out into the hall, hurrying down to the linen closet closer to his and the other Paladins' rooms. He had to stretch to reach the remaining blankets, but the ones he grabbed down were thick, huge, weighty things. Sendak might appreciate that, he thought, and grabbed a few extra pillows down, just to be safe, before towing the whole mess back to Sendak's quarters.

By the time he got back, the ruined clothes and dirty washcloth had been folded and piled neatly outside the closet doors. Haxus's ashes had been moved too-to one of the shelves near the bed, placed dead center. Sendak had returned to the mattress, though, seated upright and waiting for him, and Shiro would have been _blind_ to miss the gratitude in his expression. He dumped the blankets unceremoniously on the bed with a huff, grinning when Sendak offered him a shaky smile and began pulling the blankets and pillows up around him like a nest.

"Got everything you need?" he asked.

Sendak nodded, not looking at him until he'd rearranged the bedding to his satisfaction. "...Thank you," he said.

"It's nothing," Shiro replied. He hesitated a moment longer, then turned back towards the door. "I'm gonna go check on the Paladins, and then I'll be in my room if you need me. Third one on the right side, past the intersection."

"...I'll keep that in mind," Sendak said quietly.

There was a soft click and a whir behind him, and when Shiro glanced over his shoulder from the doorway, Sendak had settled into the nest of blankets. His prosthetic sat on the floor beside the bed. Shiro reached up and shut the lights off, letting the door shut behind him, then slumped against it with a ragged, exhausted sigh. His right arm ached, weighed down by his own prosthetic. He'd figured out how to remove it the day before they struck the hub, but the timing had never seemed right to take it off even though his remnant limb felt sore and bruised.

Or maybe he'd just been waiting for a signal. Something like this. His fingers found the hidden catches on the part that overlapped his upper arm and pressed down.


	6. Chapter 6

**A/N** : Guess who's not dead after all, folks! It took me over a year to actually finish this chapter, but here we are! I apologize for the wait-irl business caught up to me, and then I was working on other projects.

* * *

Sometimes, it took everything Keith had in him to not haul off and punch Lance's teeth down his throat. He'd been working on suppressing that urge, since if they didn't work together they were screwed, but whenever Lance got especially pushy or obnoxious he could already feel the too-familiar ache of his knuckles meeting the arch of a cheekbone.

"Why am _I_ the one doing this again?" he asked, staring intently at Sendak's door to keep from spinning around.

"Because you're the one who's least likely to get his head ripped off," Lance said.

One of Hunk's big, heavy hands landed on his shoulder. "C'mon, Keith, he's been in there for like, three days now. You aren't worried?"

"It's not my business-" Keith started.

"It'll take you five minutes, tops," Pidge countered. "Just get in, make sure he's still alive, and get back out."

Keith sighed. Something about going into Sendak's personal space didn't sit well with him, but with the others behind him, it wasn't like he had much choice in the matter. And, really...if he didn't do it, one of them probably would, and that could _not_ end well.

"Alright, _fine_ ," he muttered. "I'll check on Sendak."

"Don't let him eat you," Pidge said.

"We'll remember your sacrifice," Hunk teased.

"Yeah, maybe we'll build you a statue or something-" Lance started, but Keith cut him off before he could finish the thought.

"I _said_ I'm going in," he said, and slammed his palm down on the panel beside the door, which lit blue under his touch.

The door opened onto dimness, and Keith felt the hair raise on the back of his neck as he stepped over the threshold and it hissed shut behind him. It took his eyes a bit to adjust-Sendak had done _something_ with the lights, washing the room a dim reddish hue, almost too dark for him to see, and for the first minute his main impression was the darkness and silence. Aside from the hum of the air return and Keith's own breathing, unnaturally loud in his ears, the room was quiet.

When his eyes adjusted, the switch was nearly instantaneous; one moment the darkness was impenetrable, the next clear, if dim, and Keith scanned the room, looking for a glimpse of Sendak's pale fur in the gloom.

There was no sign of the Galra anywhere in the main space. His mattress was heaped with bedding like a nest, the door to his closet was closed and the one to the bathroom open, but the reflection visible in the mirror said that was empty too. Keith peered about uncertainly, then made his way over to the bed to prod at the heap of blankets, even though he could already tell Sendak wasn't still ensconced in them. He eyed the closet, too, but elected not to open it. No point in prying into _all_ of Sendak's business. Just entering his room was bad enough.

He turned and made his way back to the door, blinking and squinting uncomfortably in the hall lights.

"Well?" Hunk asked. "How's Sendak?"

"He wasn't in there," Keith replied.

" _What_?" Lance yelped.

"You heard me," Keith said, shooting him a glare.

"Did anyone see him go out?" Hunk asked, glancing back and forth between Lance, Keith, and Pidge.

"I didn't," Lance said.

Keith shrugged.

"I can check the security cameras," Pidge offered. She'd pulled her phone out already, and was fiddling with one of the screens. Lance leaned over to peer over her shoulder, and in the reflection of her glasses Keith could see the blurry, distorted shape of the hallway. The image flickered and juddered, and after a few minutes a figure emerged from one of the doors-it had to be Sendak, no one else was that tall.

"What was he doing in _Shiro's_ room?" Lance asked.

Pidge paused the video, rewound it. Sendak emerged from the doorway again. "...Yeah, that is pretty weird," she said.

"Who cares?" Hunk said, moving to lean over Lance's shoulder. "I wanna see where he _went_."

Pidge shrugged and pressed play, and Keith leaned over her other shoulder to watch as, in the video, Sendak made his way down to the elevators, pressed a button, and disappeared through the doors. Pidge tapped at the screen, backing out to a menu, then prodded at the sidebar and scrolled through a list of filters.

"What are you looking for?" Keith asked.

"The Castle has a _ton_ of floors, and it would take me forever to check them all manually," Pidge said. "The security system keeps a record of _active_ floors-that is, the ones we use or pass through regularly, and I can check which ones have had an elevator stop within the last five vargas-a _ha_!"

She tapped a panel, opening another set of camera footage, and it took Keith a minute to place it as the floor with the training deck. It was set high on one of the walls, which didn't help, but it had a clear view of the elevators, and after a moment the doors opened and Sendak emerged. He glanced up, looking directly at the camera, then turned and headed down the hallway, and ducked into the door to the training deck.

"...Well, that tells us that," Lance said.

"What's the timestamp on this?" Hunk asked.

"Almost an hour ago," said Pidge. "And it doesn't look like he's come out yet, so he should still be there."

"Then what are we waiting for?" Keith asked.

He turned and headed for the elevator, and the scramble behind him said the other three rushed to catch up-Pidge slipped around to his right side, while Lance and Hunk jockeyed for position at his left. Lance's longer stride had him abreast in a couple of steps, and Keith resisted the urge to speed up and pass him.

"You're _really_ this excited to see Sendak, huh," Pidge said dryly, and Keith shot her a sidelong look. Her brows had furrowed skeptically. Keith frowned, gathering his thoughts.

Hunk beat him to it. "Well _I'm_ pretty excited," he said, leaning forward to speak around Lance. "I mean, come on, the dude's been fighting his _entire_ life-would _you_ wanna pass up that kinda show?"

"I've seen him go toe-to-toe with a druid, he's pretty impressive," Lance chimed in.

Keith recalled the way the flooring had shattered under Sendak's boots during that fight, the intent scowl on his face as he wove around bolts of dark energy.

"Yeah, and that was _with_ cuffs on and only one arm," he said.

"I wonder if he's going after the gladiator," Lance said. "That thing's got a _ton_ of hard levels."

"Maybe Shiro's with him," said Hunk.

Keith shook his head. "Shiro went with Coran half an hour ago to check out something on the bridge, he'll be in there solo."

The elevator ride had never seemed faster, and within the dobosh the four of them spilled out of its doors and into the hall. Keith broke ahead of the pack and hurried for the training deck. The huffing and yelping behind said Lance, Pidge, and Hunk were struggling to keep up, and a quick glance over his shoulder showed them jockeying for position to come abreast of him. They reached the doors before anyone could, however, and Keith set his palm on the access panel, letting the whole group in.

And froze in the entrance. The din was _incredible_ -steel on steel, the thunder of heavy boots on the floor, Sendak's deep voice roaring a challenge. The Galra was in full armor again, the gladiator's staff spinning menacingly in his hands as he battered the drone back towards the wall. He smashed the butt-end of it through its chest.

A second drone dropped from the ceiling before the first vanished in a burst of blue light, and Sendak whirled on it instantly. The gladiator lunged, thrusting at Sendak with the end of the staff. The Galra sprang aside, easily dodging the thrust, then skipped out of the way as the gladiator spun towards him, staff twirling. He dodged the next two strikes, then caught the third on the forearm of his prosthetic.

Keith didn't see the next move-his eyes weren't fast enough. The staff clattered across the floor. The gladiator flew backwards, and Sendak hurtled after it, launching a whirlwind roundhouse that dented the front of the drone's breastplate. Another thunderous clang-Sendak's _organic_ fist against the faceplate, his prosthetic buried in the flexible abdomen. Those broad shoulders twisted-Sendak slammed the gladiator to the ground, where it burst into light.

Lance whooped. Sendak spun on his heel, ears flattening, then balked when he spotted them. His ears flicked back upright immediately, and even from across the room Keith could tell his expression had relaxed. The tight line of his shoulders eased as he straightened.

"Good morning," he said. "I hadn't realized I had an audience."

"We _just_ got here," Pidge huffed.

"Holy _shit_ , dude," Lance said. "Can you show us that move again?"

"Which one?" Sendak asked. He shifted his weight solidly to the right, propping his fist up on one hip, and something about the faint flash of fang registered as _cocky_ in the back of Keith's brain.

"Uh, all of them?" Hunk asked. He moved further into the room, and Lance grabbed his shoulder as he went. Keith hurried after them, moving out of the doorway to get a better view.

Sendak shrugged, then stretched and turned back towards the ceiling hatch. "I may not repeat that sequence again, but you are all welcome to stay and watch if you like. Commence level sixteen!"

The hair on the back of Keith's neck rose. Level _sixteen_ ? He'd hardly passed level five two days before, and that training session had left him with bruises he still felt-and the higher levels were _much_ faster and hit harder. Sendak glanced back towards them, and Keith shivered. He was _smiling_ , fangs bared and ears alert, his lone eye dancing.

The gladiator dropped again. This time, Sendak rushed it. He sprang lightly over the first thrust of the staff and kicked the drone in the chest, knocking it stumbling.

He didn't press the advantage, though, setting a stance and letting the gladiator recover. Letting it come back to him. Letting it circle him, his ears twitching with each step. It prowled around to Sendak's right side, and Keith found himself tensing. Surely Sendak wouldn't let it into his blind spot?

The droid paused, nearly behind Sendak, and swung its staff at his back.

Sendak spun, smashing the blow aside with his forearm, and danced backwards. The gladiator pursued, slashing side-to-side at him. He dodged, each blow falling just to one side or the other. Keith forced himself to unclench his fists. It was just a gladiator match. Sendak could end the sequence if he couldn't keep up-

Sendak turned on his heel and ran the last few yards to the back wall, where the gladiator had been backing him to. No. _Up_ the wall. Three long bounds, and he twisted midair, flipping over and over. Smashed fists-first into the gladiator. _Through_ the gladiator, cratering the floor beneath as it burst into light around him.

" _Woah_ ," Lance gasped.

Someone applauded behind them.

Keith spun around, tensed-and relaxed at the sight of Shiro. Shiro's eyes were bright and focused, over Keith's shoulder-on Sendak, roving up and down as if taking the Galra in. He glanced over Keith and the other Paladins, nodding a greeting, and brushed past them, into the training deck. He was already in armor, Keith noticed belatedly. What had Coran had him _up_ to?

"Good to see you up and about, Sen," Shiro called.

 _Sen?_

"Good to _be_ up," Sendak replied. His posture had relaxed, ears flicking back upright.

"Already showing off for the other Paladins, huh?" Shiro asked. He was beginning to circle, Keith realized.

Sendak moved with him, matching his circling stride for stride. "Well, I _did_ need to get the blood flowing again. It doesn't do for a warrior to sit idle."

"And you didn't think to invite me to spar with you."

"But here you are." Sendak's eye was shining, a grin playing about his lips. "I'm already bored with your gladiator. Care to give me a bout worth my while?"

"Only if you think you won't get bored with me, too," Shiro replied. Their circle was tightening.

"A real opponent is _never_ boring," Sendak said, and lunged forward.

Shiro blocked him, redirecting Sendak's punch with the forearm of his prosthetic. They traded blows a moment or two, a flurry of arms Keith could hardly keep up with-and then Shiro skipped aside, nimbly evading Sendak's next punch, and aimed a kick at his knee. Sendak jumped it, spinning to face him. Shiro kept circling. Sendak swayed in place, keeping him in his field of vision. He lunged again-

Quick as a flash, Shiro was airborne. His thighs wrapped around Sendak's neck-twisted-and Sendak rolled with it. They tumbled to the floor, rolling over and over. Something thudded against the floor-Shiro had slammed Sendak down against it, his prosthetic glowing at the Galra's neck. From Keith's angle, it was hard to make out Sendak's expression, but his head tilted back, baring the length of his throat. The pose was almost intimate, Shiro straddling Sendak's broad chest, Sendak unmoving in submission.

And then Shiro stood and took a step back, helping Sendak to his feet. Sendak was chuckling-Keith could hear it even at this distance-ears perked up and eye half-lidded, his expression delighted.

"I let you have that one," Sendak said.

"Yeah, like you let me have the one last night?" Shiro retorted.

"If I go all-out I'll kill you, and I'd rather not," Sendak said, and skipped sideways as Shiro swatted at him.

"Last _night_?" Keith asked, and Shiro jumped guiltily.

Keith glanced back at Lance, and then at Pidge, and there was something _knowing_ in her expression.

"Who _hasn't_ trained when sleep doesn't come easily?" Sendak said glibly, cutting off any line of questioning.

Keith felt his ears heat with embarrassment. There was nothing he could say to that, really-he'd run into Shiro a couple times at midnight heading to or from the training deck. He could be making unreasonable assumptions.

" _Anyway_ ," Shiro said, in a tone that demanded attention, and Keith looked up immediately. "Coran sent me down to get you all. Apparently there's something going on with the flight-shielding, and he needs the five of us to go out and check it out for him."

"What sort of something?" Pidge asked. She'd perked up immediately at that, bouncing up onto the balls of her feet in excitement.

"He says one of the external control panels either needs to be recalibrated, or it needs to be disassembled and cleaned," Shiro said, then shrugged. "He was running diagnostics when he sent me down, so I guess we'll find out which it is once we're all suited up and ready to go."

That was an order, not a suggestion. Lance grumbled something under his breath, but it didn't get any further than that before Hunk clapped him on the shoulder and turned him around to go. Pidge ducked past them, darting out the door towards the elevators. Keith followed the three of them, but he paused in the doorway and glanced over his shoulder at Shiro and Sendak. The Galra had bowed his head, and Shiro had a hand on his shoulder, speaking quietly into the shell of one outsized ear.

Something about their body language said he _hadn't_ been making assumptions.

Keith turned and left before they could spot him, but the elevator ride up to his quarters felt longer than it should have. He suited up as quickly as he could, then made his way to the maintenance airlock on the bridge level to join the others.

The moment they were out of the airlock, Coran's voice crackled over the comms.

 _"I've run the diagnostics, and the repairs should be fairly simple, as long as you follow my directions_ exactly _,"_ he said. _"You'll want to head aft over the left flank of the Castle. The control panel should be about thirty_ rell _in front of you-it's circular, should be flush with the side of the ship with a handle on the top."_

 _"Got it!"_ Hunk called, bounding down the side of the ship towards the stern.

Keith hurried after him, launching himself past Lance to join Hunk beside the raised circle on the exterior panels. He touched down next to it, bracing against the panel underfoot-the Castle was still drifting, and the momentum almost made Keith nervous. The Garrison instructors had stressed the importance of tethered spacewalks in _every_ pilot's class he'd taken. Then again, none of their ships had been as large as the Castle; it was heavy enough for him to feel the faint tug of its gravity holding him close to the side of the ship, but it wouldn't take much to break free of it.

 _"Alright, now twist the handle,"_ Coran said. _"The control panel should lift up so you all can access it."_

 _"Let's be quick with these repairs,"_ Shiro said, touching down next to Keith. _"If we get caught out here like this by the Empire, we'll be in big trouble."_

A new voice chimed in over the comms-Sendak's. _"The odds of that are fairly low-the Olvara sector isn't very well patrolled, and most of the military's installations are on the far side of it, closer to the Imperial core."_

 _"And how would you know that?"_ Allura huffed. Keith jumped. Coran must have been on the bridge running the diagnostics, then.

 _"I was_ stationed _here for a while, and the Empire is not quick to move military outposts unless it has good reason to do so. An outpost is expensive,"_ Sendak retorted.

Hunk twisted the handle, and the control panel hissed out of its place against the hull. _"Okay Coran, the panel's off. Now what?"_

 _"Very simple,"_ Coran said. _"Just loosen the_ blaxums _on the_ somoflange _."_

Keith peered over Hunk's shoulder, well aware of the others doing the same, and stared at the control panel in blank incomprehension.

 _"...Could you be more specific?"_ Hunk asked dryly.

 _"Sorry, Hunk, he means the_ poklones _on the_ agroclams _,"_ Allura said.

 _"...Or you could tell them what those things look like, that may be more helpful,"_ Sendak said.

 _"Yeah, Sendak's right, that doesn't help,"_ Hunk said.

 _"Easy Hunk, I got this,"_ Lance said, nudging Hunk out of the way.

He tapped at the control panel, then twisted a knob on the side. The panel flashed, then lit up red. And then the column lit red too, and the panels on the hull. An alarm blared tinnily in Keith's ear.

 _"That can't be good,"_ Lance said nervously.

 _"Not the_ smalters _, it's the_ poklones _-"_

 _"No, no-it's the_ blaxums _-"_

 _"Why don't you tell them what the fiddly bits_ look _like?!"_

 _"Just let me-"_ Pidge said, and when he turned around she was leaning over the control panel. Her nimble fingers darted across the screens, twisted a knob or two on the sides, and then she turned the handle on top and pressed it down into the panel.

The alarms died away, and the red glow faded back into the usual pale blue light.

 _"Well_ done _, Pidge!"_ Allura said.

 _"The tech on this ship never ceases to amaze me,"_ Pidge said brightly. _"It's just_ so _mathematically elegant-the fit is a hundred times more frictionless than any exoskeleton we have on Earth! It's_ beautiful _."_

 _"It's not a sunset, Pidge,"_ Lance said.

 _"Yeah, a billion sunsets just_ happen _every day. Some genius engineer actually_ built _this,"_ Pidge retorted. She twisted the handle again, and the control panel sank back down into the ship.

 _"Looks more like a curly fry than a sunset to me, anyway,"_ Hunk said. And then something struck him in the helmet. Something bluish-white, a little larger than Keith's closed fist and almost perfectly spherical.

Keith looked up, towards the bow, and it took him a moment to realize that the vast field of white ahead of them wasn't just the normal stars, but a vast cloud of similar white orbs. They didn't look like asteroids, not really-more like snowballs. More of them drifted past as the Castle glided into the cloud.

Shiro turned sideways to the cloud, activating his shield, and Keith glanced sideways at him before copying him. _"Alright, we're prepared for this,"_ Shiro said. _"Remember your rogue projectile cluster training from the Garrison."_

One of the snowball asteroids shot past him, back into the cloud-and then a second, and Keith turned as the third struck Shiro in the back of the helmet.

 _"Sorry, Shiro!"_ Lance called, not sounding even slightly apologetic, and Keith snagged a snowball asteroid and wound up to throw. _"I was trying to hit Keith-"_

Keith hurled it at him, splattering the asteroid all over the front of his helmet, and grinned triumphantly at Lance's frustrated growl. _"Like_ that _?"_

 _"Squishy asteroid fight!"_ Hunk crowed, leaping forward with an asteroid in each hand.

Keith snatched up another one and launched it at Hunk, catching him in the side of the helmet. The momentum knocked him backwards with a yelp. He hurled himself sideways, narrowly avoiding Lance's next shot, and hurled two more at them-and then one at Shiro, when Shiro protested, and the game began in earnest.

An asteroid nailed him in the faceplate, hurling him backwards. Had to be Lance. He launched himself back upright, grabbing two more, and threw them back at Lance-who ducked behind Hunk at the last minute, the asteroids splattering across his breastplate. Shiro whipped one sideways, knocking Lance over, and Keith caught his grin and laughed, dodging Hunk's next snowball by a mere inch.

 _"Guys, I don't think these are asteroids,"_ Pidge said. Keith glanced sideways at her-and then back at Lance when the latter launched another asteroid at his helmet. _"Coran, I think I'm gonna need a containment unit."_

 _"Just a tick,"_ Coran said.

The asteroid fight was beginning to wind down by the time the containment unit actually arrived, with Lance still hiding out behind Hunk, and Keith had retreated back behind Shiro by the time Allura said, over the comms, _"It appears to be some kind of hyper-resilient spore."_

 _"This bioluminescent pulsing doesn't seem natural,"_ Pidge said. _"It appears_ programmed _-I think it's some sort of code."_

 _"A code? From who?"_ Hunk asked.

 _"I don't know. I mean, it doesn't make any sense-you can't program a spore,"_ Pidge said skeptically.

 _"Well, if anyone can figure it out, it's you,"_ Shiro said.

 _"Before that, all of you need to come in for decontamination,"_ Allura said.

Keith reluctantly dropped the last asteroid he'd been holding, rather than throwing it at Lance's head and knocking the stupid look off his face one last time, and followed the others back to the airlock, bracing himself as jets of scalding water bombarded them from all sides, knocking the caked-on spore debris off their suits. The decontamination procedure-all ten minutes of it-always seemed sort of unnecessary, but at least they were cleaned off by the time they emerged, windblown and shaken, from the airlock.

Pidge excused herself immediately, hurrying down the hall towards the elevators-probably heading to her hangar to investigate the spore-and the others...split off unevenly. Shiro left them with a noncommittal excuse about training and vanished after her, leaving Keith with Lance and Hunk until the latter ducked off towards the kitchens. Lance turned towards Keith, brows furrowed and accusing, and Keith broke into a jog before he could say anything. He ducked back into his quarters, slumping against the door with a sigh.

Then he turned, shucking his armor and uniform and pulling his familiar t-shirt and pants back on, and had just finished buckling his belt when a glint of something metallic on his bed caught his eye.

At some point, his knife had slipped out from under his pillow.

A chill ran down his spine, and he hurried back to the bed, scooping it up and turning it over in his hands. It was still sheathed, thankfully, concealing the symbol on its hilt, and it didn't _look_ like someone had been digging around in his things, but his gut still churned uncomfortably. Keith sat down hard on the bed, turning the blade over again, then carefully unsheathed it, studying his own face in his reflection in the steel.

He could still see his father's rough, calloused hands wrapped around the hilt and the sheath, offering it to him. It had been his mother's, his father had said. She'd wanted him to have it, he'd said, and less than three months later he'd been dead.

He'd begun his frantic search then, spending hours and hours researching knives from cultures across the world. He'd wandered museums, when his foster families had lived close enough for him to walk, studying the collections until close and looking for similar shapes. He'd trawled databases, and threads on obscure websites, and probably ended up on a government watchlist or two for almost a decade of fruitless searching, and now…

Ulaz's blade had the same symbol on the hilt.

Keith tilted the blade again, meeting his own eyes reflected.

He'd need to see another of the Blade of Marmora's knives, or more Galra script, or _something_ -

Keith jammed the knife hastily back into the sheath, tucked it back under his pillow, and stood. He pulled his boots back on hastily, slammed his palm against the access panel and hurried down the hall towards Sendak's quarters. If his knife was Galra, if the Galra had been to Earth, Sendak would know something. He hesitated a moment outside Sendak's door, bouncing nervously on the balls of his feet, then pressed his hand against the access panel. The door hissed open.

The lights were brighter this time, and when Keith poked his head in, Sendak was seated on his bed, his uniform replaced with a loose, open shirt and a long skirt. His legs were crossed, his head bowed over a holopad, but he looked up when Keith entered the room. A slight smile tugged at the corner of his mouth.

"Keith," Sendak said, nodding in greeting.

"...Sendak," Keith replied, and padded into the room. He boosted himself up onto the edge of the bed, perching beside the Galra. "...What are you reading?"

"A novel I thought I wouldn't get to finish when you wrecked my cruiser," Sendak said, allaying the stab of guilt with a wry grin. "Was there something you needed?"

Keith hesitated a moment, uncertain, then took a breath and forged ahead. "Have the Galra ever been to Earth?" he asked.

Sendak's head tilted, ears twitching. "Obviously we've been to your solar system-how _else_ would Shiro have fallen into Galra custody?"

"I meant, like...before last year," Keith said. "Before the Kerberos mission."

Sendak's brows furrowed thoughtfully, his ears flattening. His claws clicked against the screen of his holopad as he drummed his fingers. "...Bear in mind, your solar system is nowhere near my sector," he said, "but I believe there may have been a few exploratory missions to that area...twenty cycles ago? I was only informed since I'd located the Red Lion a few movements prior to the first one being sent, and they suspected there might be another Lion in that sector-which, clearly, there was-but as I recall your entire solar system was deemed of little economic interest and no strategic value whatsoever, and was ignored until your Kerberos mission arrived on the fringes of your solar system. Why do you ask?"

Keith froze. "Um. I was just...curious. You know."

"I don't," Sendak said. His head tilted the other way, his eye narrowing slightly. "...But _you_ know something you haven't shared with me. Don't you."

"I…" Keith hesitated, shoulders curling in on themselves. A lump settled itself in his throat. How to explain? _I have a knife that might not have been made on Earth?_

 _I might not even be human?_

The comms crackled abruptly, and the weight of Sendak's gaze lifted off of Keith as he looked towards the ceiling, ears flicking upright.

 _"Hey guys!"_ Pidge exclaimed. _"I've been tinkering around with the spore we picked up, you've_ gotta _come check this out!"_

The comms went quiet again, and Keith met Sendak's gaze again in silence.

The Galra sighed. "I suppose we should see what she found. We'll continue this conversation later, understand?"

"...Yeah," Keith said, and stood carefully.

Sendak rose as well, folding his holopad away and folding his shirt closed across his chest, lashing it in place with a sash Keith hadn't noticed before. "I do expect a good explanation for this line of questioning, so please do me the courtesy of having one prepared," he said, and turned towards the door.

Keith trailed him quietly to the elevators, leaning back against the wall and directing his gaze towards the floor to avoid meeting Sendak's eye. He could hear something clicking, something hard on metal, and from the rhythmic patterns it was probably Sendak drumming his claws on the wall or his prosthetic-it couldn't be the elevator itself. The elevator didn't make noises like that.

The doors hissed open, and Keith ducked out before Sendak could, hurrying down the hallway towards the Green Lion's hangar. The doors to it were open, letting the hum and whir and click of Pidge's computers carry down the hallway loud and clear-as well as the voices of the people already there. From the sound of things, he and Sendak were the last ones, and sure enough, everyone but Allura was already gathered around the monitors on Pidge's desk. Pidge glanced up as they came in, her eyes alight.

"Oh, great, you're just in time!" she said cheerfully, leaning in to tap at something on her keyboard. "I was _just_ about to explain how I was able to crack the _sporse_ code." She chuckled at her own joke, hitting a couple of keys and bringing up a number of complicated diagrams, scrolling with code. "I ran the bioluminescent pattern through a variety of codebreaking sequences, including this homemade virtual Turing machine. Of course, I had to make a few tweaks to the original design because _obviously_ there've been several advancements since he designed it-although you _have_ to admit, Turing was a shining light in the world of science in an age when far too many were still—"

" _Pidge_ ," Keith said, cutting her off. "What does it actually say?"

"Who is _Turing_?" Sendak asked from behind him.

Pidge opened her mouth to answer, but Hunk cut her off. "Tell ya later, buddy," he said, and a sideways glance showed an uncomfortable grin on his face. "If we let Pidge explain, she'll never get around to telling us what the code says."

"I would _so_ ," Pidge huffed. "But yeah, it says 'Under attack. Galra. Help,' and then there are coordinates."

"So it's a distress signal," Shiro said. "Good work, Pidge. Let's get those coordinates into the Castle's navigation system."

"Hold on a tick," Sendak said. "Just how old is this distress signal? The beacon itself doesn't appear to have a propulsion system, and most of the planets in this region have been under Imperial control for well over a century-there are no active combat zones anywhere near the Olvara sector, we're too far from the expansion edge for that."

Silence. Keith met Shiro's gaze, saw the discomfort there, then glanced back towards the others. Pidge's shoulders hunched uncomfortably.

"...I...guess I can see if we can carbon-date the spore?" she said. "Then again, that may not be accurate either-I have _no_ idea how the radioactive isotopes in carbon decay in space, or if we have the equipment we'd need to do it, or…"

"Easy, Pidge," Shiro said. "There's no need to do that. We're going to take the coordinates up to the bridge and put them in the nav system, which will tell us where the origin of the signal is, and then Sendak's gonna tell us how long the Galra have occupied that planet. Right, Sendak?"

There was an edge to his tone that made the little hairs on the back of Keith's neck stand straight up, and a glance at Sendak said he shared the sentiment-his ruff had puffed out over the collar of his shirt.

"...I suppose I could be made amenable to that," the Galra said.

"Well then, let's not waste any more time!" Coran said, cheerily, and turned back towards the elevators.

For a moment, the rest of them were still. Then Pidge slammed her laptop closed and vaulted over her desk after him, sparking the rest to action. Lance and Hunk hurried after her, and Keith waited a bare second longer to follow them, letting Shiro and Sendak take up the rear. The elevator was cramped, with all of them in it, and when it opened onto the bridge Keith spilled out gratefully.

Allura had been at the control podium, doing something on one of her screens, but she glanced up at them as they entered, her eyes widening.

"What's going on?" she asked.

"Pidge cracked the code from the spore she picked up," Shiro explained. "It's a distress beacon."

"Right," Allura said. She dismissed her screens with a wave of her hand, then pulled up a second one, fingers at the ready. "Pidge, the coordinates?"

Pidge had thrown herself down in her seat already, but she glanced up at the sound of her name, meeting Allura's gaze, and rattled off a string of numbers so long Keith wondered how she remembered it all. Allura's fingers flew across the screen, punching in digits, and a moment later the star map bloomed across the bridge, lighting up in their current sector and zooming in on a star system. Behind him, someone gave a muffled gasp.

"It looks like the signal came from—" Coran started.

"Olkarion," Sendak said. His voice shook, and when Keith glanced back at him, his ears had flattened nervously.

"...Yes," Coran said. "Is something the matter?"

Sendak sucked in a breath. His shoulders had lifted slightly-something about his posture made Keith think he wanted to run. "Olkarion was my first posting in the field."

Silence.

" _What_?!" Allura demanded.

"Olkarion was _conquered_?" Coran yelped.

"They wouldn't have sent a _distress signal_ otherwise," Sendak huffed.

"Wait, wait," Hunk said. "What's so special about Olkarion?"

"It's the homeworld of the Olkari, a race of _incredible_ engineers," Allura said. "They had a seemingly magical ability to manipulate solid metal-with just a wave of their hands, they could build a computer inside a solid block of steel. The Galra must have wanted that ability for their own."

She cast a look of loathing at Sendak, who flattened his ears and curled his lip in response.

"Don't look at _me_ , I wasn't the commander in charge of the campaign," he said. "That was _long_ before I reached command."

"How long?" Coran asked. "You said most of the planets in this sector have been conquered for over a century."

Sendak shook his head, but before anyone else could say anything, Shiro reached up and put a hand on Sendak's shoulder.

"I know this is rough for you, but you need to tell us," Shiro said quietly. "Please, Sendak. We need every advantage we can get."

Sendak sucked in a deep breath. "...Olkarion was conquered five cycles before I entered the field as a foot soldier...just over sixty cycles ago," he said. "The commanding officer on that campaign, who was subsequently sentenced to administer the planet until he proved his worth, after his failures during the campaign, was General Branko. He's an embarrassing strategist, and his poor leadership meant over half the population of Olkarion managed to flee their cities and set up strongholds in the wilderness areas on the planet's surface, which Imperial satellites have been unable to locate and which decimated the squads of drones and foot soldiers sent to bring the rebels to heel." He took another breath, squaring his shoulders. "There has been an active, concerted resistance since then. I would advise you to make contact with them-all the intelligence I can offer is over fifty cycles out of date, while they will be more informed about Branko's plans and movements, and how best to strike at his outpost."

"...Wow," Lance said. "That's, uh, a lot."

"...And all this was only sixty years ago?" Pidge said, squinting at Sendak. "Are you sure about that?"

Sendak folded his arms across his chest and glared at her. "I'm _quite_ certain, thank you," he said acridly.

"...Just how old are you, anyway?" Coran asked. Keith looked back over at him. The Altean's brows had furrowed, and he tugged at his mustache, like he often did when deep in thought. "As I recall, most Galra commanders are in their third century, but for you to have been a fresh soldier sixty cycles ago…"

"I don't think that's your business," Sendak said.

"I do," Allura said. " _Something_ about your story doesn't add up. Either Olkarion has been conquered _much_ longer and you're leading us into some Galra trap, or—"

"I'm two hundred and twenty cycles of age," Sendak snapped, arms folded defensively. "I first took the field at one-hundred and sixty, when I came of age. And don't look at me like that, _some_ of us are actually competent leaders who achieved rank by _ability_."

"Alright, that's enough," Shiro said, putting his hands up. "Princess, Sendak, _please_ stop picking fights with each other. We're going to Olkarion, and we'll deal with whatever's waiting for us when we get there."

"...I suppose," Allura said.

She turned her back with a huff, tapping at something on her screen, and Keith felt the thrusters kick on beneath his feet. The bridge went uncomfortably silent. The other Paladins glanced sidelong at each other-Keith tried to catch Shiro's gaze, then Hunk's or Pidge's, then, when none of them would hold his eyes for longer than a couple of seconds, turned to look down at the floor.

"...Well," Coran said awkwardly. "We're about a varga out from Olkarion if we don't travel via wormhole."

"Then I suppose we better suit up," Shiro said. His voice was grim. "We'd better be ready to face whatever's waiting for us."


End file.
